


The Gates of Time

by eliddell



Category: Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Dragon mating stuff, I'm probably forgetting something again, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions, Unexpected acquisition of adult offspring, mazoku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:45:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 37
Words: 133,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6932842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliddell/pseuds/eliddell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when you discover that the most important thing missing from your life is something you can never get back?</p><p>Ever since he was a tiny hatchling, Val has always felt that there was an empty space inside him. He only feels whole when he dreams of a mysterious man with long, red hair.</p><p>Then a foolish love-divination spell of the type usually cast by teenaged girls leads him to discover the truth:  The red-haired man is his mate, the only one he can ever have, and his mate is dead.</p><p>But Val has no intention of giving up on his vision of a happier future. He'll get his beloved back, no matter what he has to do.</p><p>Little does he know that finding a way to restore the Chaos Dragon to his side will only be the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, where to begin.
> 
> This was originally supposed to be an almost completely different story, more of a murder mystery type of thing, and much shorter, but the characters wouldn't let me get away with that. The only things left of the earlier version are part of one scene and a handful of OCs. And then the action plot ran away with me sometime around the village festival in chapter 13. Sigh. Why do I do this to myself?
> 
> It was also one of those stories that stubbornly resisted my efforts to stick it with a title. In the end, I went with one I didn't entirely like, since it's my policy never to release anything over 10000 words as "[Untitled]".
> 
> The story basically fits in the anime continuum, but some bits of the novels have been pulled in where they don't cause problems. In particular, a version of the events in novels 9-13 took place after the end of Revolution-R, and Rashatt was in Dils during the second half of Next, although Lina and the others never met him. (If you've never read the novels, don't worry—you'll just miss some throwaway references.)
> 
> Thirty-six chapters plus an epilogue-y thing that I couldn't quite justify calling a separate story. As usual, Gaav swears a lot in this. Don't say I didn't warn you.
> 
> I went with Japanese honourifics this time because one of the OCs insisted on having a nickname containing one. Stubborn brat.
> 
> As usual, I don't own _The Slayers_ , or its characters and settings. They belong to Hajime Kanzaka and a bunch of other people he presumably licensed them to.

_"Have you been hiding here all along?"_

_He smirks at me, and raises one bushy eyebrow. "Hiding? I didn't think I was_ that _difficult to find."_

_I scowl back at him. "You're in a shadowed alcove with a piece of statuary half-screening you from the rest of the room. That's pretty close to hiding."_

_Damn, but he looks good. For once, he's left that yellow coat he loves so much behind in his room, and is dressed to look like he belongs here, more or less. Not that he's gone in for the ruffles and lace that seem to be popular with the younger set at this court—they'd look ridiculous on someone of his size, anyway. Instead, he's chosen a tunic and trousers of black silk, severe and military in cut, but set off by startling jewelry from the collection of odds and ends that he's picked up over the centuries: a belt of patterned gold plaques, a single gold ring of elven design that's just barely large enough for his little finger, a hair-ring set with swirls of sapphires and emeralds, and the brooch pinning his cravat has a massive star ruby the size of my top thumb joint as a centerpiece, among more sapphires and emeralds. They look like they should be some human nation's crown jewels, and for all I know, maybe they were once. Combine all of that with his size and blood-red hair and complete self-confidence, and he draws the eye like a magnet . . . when he's not hiding in an alcove behind a statue._

_My own clothes are more fashionable, although I've managed to keep the ruffles under control. I had to just about beat the tailor's head in to do it, but I don't want anything tangling my hands if something goes wrong and we have to fight. My cravat's secured with a relatively plain gold-and-opal stickpin, I've replaced my headband with a delicate elf-work circlet, and a matching bracelet flashes at my wrist when I flip the ruffles back. The subtly-patterned blue-green-grey silk brocade I wear is utterly ignorable here, and I have an illusion spell hiding my horn and my scars. I don't look like an idiot, I know—I just feel like one._

_"I need to get a better idea of what's going on at this court before we start messing with it," he says, gesturing with the glass of red wine he's holding with his little finger angled carefully out. It's still mostly full. Of course, he does prefer beer. "That means observing what's going on. Even when it fucking bores me out of my skull. Besides, I don't get asked to dance if I'm back here."_

_I chuckle. "Don't tell me you never learned how."_

_"The dances have changed completely since the last time I had to do this kind of shit in person, but that isn't a problem—footwork is footwork, after all. It's who I'd have to dance_ with _."_

_I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing full out. "What, you don't approve of your admirer?"_

_There's that eyebrow again. "Would you? I don't give a flying fuck that she's old enough to be scared shitless of ending up a spinster, that she's got the figure of a coatrack, or that she hasn't got the fortune I don't need, but she's also got the brains of one of those whipped cream desserts that're so popular here, and she isn't politically useful, either. And worst of all, she isn't you." His free hand touches the nape of my neck, just lightly, and I have to repress a shiver as I suddenly wish very strongly that we could go back to his room, and—_

"Val-dono! Time to wake up!" 

I grumbled into my pillow, but the dream was already broken, the ballroom of whatever kingdom it had been evaporated. 

He was gone. Again. 

"Val-dono!" 

"Jillas, if you poke me in the ribs with that cane again, I'm going to break it over your head." I forced myself to sit up, rub my eyes, stretch. 

"Aw, don't be like that, Val-dono." The little fox-man's ears and tail were drooping. Not that they were ever as perky now as I remembered them being when I was just hatched. Ninety-three was a ridiculously old age for a beastman who wasn't also a sorcerer, but Filia-mama had always been generous with her healing spells. Jillas was still pretty spry. On dry, warm days, he barely needed his cane, and while he might not see well enough anymore to be willing to mess around with gunpowder, he could still read if he held the book exactly the right distance from his face. 

"I just don't like bruises," I grumbled. Because I liked Uncle Jillas, and he didn't deserve to have me take out my temper on him. Especially given how vicious that temper could be. 

"You have school," he reminded me. 

"Like that matters. You know they'll just have me tutoring the kids who can't keep up." I'd burned through the entire core curriculum at the Mossport Comprehensive Elvish School by the time I was fifty, and run out of electives (or at least, ones that Filia-mama would let me take) fifteen years later. Well, okay, there was the flower arranging course that I'd failed three times and given up on, but I'd only taken it in the first place because it was literally the only thing left. So I'd spent the past six years tutoring and twiddling my thumbs. They'd never had any other dragon students, and they had, as the principal had delicately put it, vastly underestimated my ability to absorb information, but Filia-mama insisted that I keep on showing up there every morning until I turned eighty. Nine more years to go. 

It could have been worse, though: Filia-mama could have tried to send me to a human school. At one of those, I would have been around longer than most of the teachers by now, since humans age at five times the speed of young dragons. And I'd have plowed through everything the school had to offer in no more than five years, then gone crazy from boredom. Part of the reason Filia-mama had settled in Mossport was that they had a big enough elven population that there were schools around that were geared to the needs of the long-lived. 

And I didn't really care about any of it, because none of it was _important_. School didn't matter. The dreams mattered. _He_ mattered. 

There was a place inside my mind that felt empty. I couldn't really describe it, and I sure as hell couldn't explain it. It had been there all my life, so I might not even have noticed it . . . except that when I was dreaming of him, the big, red-haired man with the shaggy eyebrows and the booming laugh, that place wasn't empty anymore. And I craved that not-empty feeling, wanted it so badly that there were times I felt like I was going to lose my mind. 

I'd had the dreams all my life too. Just snatches at first, of innocuous things. Playing chess, curling up on a sofa beside him, sharing a meal. Being pulled under the canopy of a tree during a rainstorm. His hand ruffling my hair. Drinking together in a tavern . . . Dream-me was older than real-me, I knew that. Dream-me was taller and stronger, with scarred, callused hands and short hair that he didn't need to tie back. 

I'd been wondering for a long time now if my dreams were prophetic. They certainly weren't normal dreams, and they'd been getting clearer as I got older. This past couple of years, he'd started touching me a lot more. My dream man. And the touches made me feel warm, the way his smile did. 

If he was part of my future, I was . . . actually pretty happy with the idea. I wasn't looking forward to whatever was going to give me those scars, but being with him, being _not-empty_ , would be worth it. 

"Val-dono! If you're not down in time for breakfast . . ." 

I sighed and rubbed my eyes again. "Tell Filia-mama that I'll be there in a minute." 

I grabbed my summer-weight school uniform and yanked it on, double-checked to make sure my socks were both the same colour, and headed downstairs. 

We had two tables in the dining room, a low one and a high one. The low one was for the foxes, Jillas and his step-son Palu and Palu's kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and the one great-great-grandkid who was old enough not to disrupt everyone else's meal by making a mess, plus assorted spouses. It was probably a good thing that Jynni—Jillas' daughter and Palu's half-sister—had moved out when she'd gotten married, although we did still get an invasion of extra foxes every Ceiphiedmas. 

The high table could seat six if they were all good friends, but it only had three chairs at it right now, and two places set. The third chair had been the one Gravos used, and while he wasn't going to be coming back for it unless some necromancer invaded the local cemetery, none of us had had the heart to get rid of it, either. It just sat there, gathering dust, with one of us occasionally giving it a sidelong look and wincing away. 

Filia-mama was already sitting there, nibbling at a piece of toast and sipping her tea. The table had a new scar, I noted as I joined her. And there was another teacup, broken, in the garbage. 

"Your tail's showing," I told her as I nearly tripped over it on the way to my chair. It was always her tail that popped out when she lost control of her humanoid shape, and that happened whenever she got angry. I just didn't understand why, because I hadn't had a problem with popouts since I was twenty and taking the shape of a human four-year-old. There was always a moment where I could feel that something was going to let go, and I could stop and pull it in again. But either Filia-mama didn't have that moment in the first place, or she couldn't calm herself down enough to catch it. 

She said something that sounded like "rrgh" and got the tail under control. 

"Bad morning?" I asked, and knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say when her tail popped out again. 

"That, that Mazoku _garbage_!" she snarled, fangs on display. 

I sighed and shoveled some bacon into my mouth. _Xellos again._ He'd been showing up either at the house or at the shop a couple of times a year since I'd hatched, and he always made Filia-mama fly off the handle. 

"If you'd stop getting mad at him, he'd stop coming back," I said to my plate. "He only turns up because he thinks you're tasty." 

"Don't you lecture me, young man!" 

_Why not? Someone should._ There were times when it seemed like Filia-mama was the least mature person in the house, including two fox cubs who were still in diapers. 

"I was just making a suggestion," I said mildly. "Sorry if it sounded like a lecture—I didn't mean it to." The easiest way to defang Filia-mama was to be polite, I'd discovered over the years. 

I grimaced as I noticed she was squeezing her teacup, and shifted sideways, toward Gravos' chair. She broke several teacups a year that way, and always managed to spray tea everywhere when she did it, but I wasn't quite brave enough to suggest she switch to tin cups. Thankfully, this time she managed to get herself under control, and set the cup down on her saucer with an abrupt, jagged motion. 

"I'm sorry, Val. You know that Mazoku garbage puts me on edge." She reached out and almost touched my arm, but pulled her hand back again without making contact. That had been happening an awful lot since I'd hit my most recent growth spurt. And sometimes she would look at me, then look away again, like just seeing me had hurt her. I had a feeling it had to do with my real parents, the ones that had died while I was still in the egg, that she didn't like to talk about. 

I wondered sometimes if I looked like them. If my dad had had aqua hair or my mom had had gold eyes. I expected I'd never find out even that much about them. Filia-mama wouldn't talk. More than that, she always shushed Jillas (and Gravos, when he'd still been around) when it looked like one of them might say something. There was something not quite right there. I could tell. I wondered sometimes if she'd hated them. My parents, I mean. But then why had she taken me in and raised me? I just didn't get it. 

When I'd been little, she'd hugged me a lot. I kind of missed it, even if I knew it wasn't very manly, and I was almost grown up. 

My dream-man hugged me sometimes, but that felt a lot different from having Filia-mama do it. She didn't send little hot and cold sparks racing along my spine. I didn't understand why things were always so different with him. Having her touch me was nice. Having him touch me was . . . was . . . 

"Finish your breakfast, Val, or you'll be late for school." 

"Yeah, yeah." I shoveled eggs and bacon into my mouth and forced myself to think about school. 

It was easier than thinking about dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Fuck, I don't believe we actually did it!" I'm grinning so hard it feels like my face is going to split in two. Twenty men holding off more than a hundred, and we didn't even have to show that two of us were anything other than human._

_"Superior strategy." His coat's splashed with blood, and I think his hair must be matted with it, red on red, but if anything he's grinning even more widely than I am. "Plus, if any of them had a brain larger than a fucking walnut, you wouldn't have been able to tell it by the way they acted." He chuckles. Then his expression shifts, from a grin of amusement to a sweeter, subtler smile of pride. "You did well, little dragon. I'm glad it was you here, and not one of the others."_

_I turn to face him fully, wrapping my arms around his neck, and he leans down, stopping for a moment with his face less than an inch from mine. I can feel our breath mingling, tickling my skin. He stays there for one eternal moment before leaning lower, and I part my lips in anticipation._

_My knees just about turn to liquid as he seals our mouths together, his tongue moving with tantalizing slowness as it begins to explore what should be familiar territory for him by now. He tastes more like blood than usual—given that the damned stuff was everywhere during the fight, it isn't surprising—but I don't mind. Hell, I want to rip his clothes off right here. I would if we were alone, but there are live humans watching us, not just corpses. Aren't there? As his tongue tangles around mine, it's getting more and more difficult to see anything but the bottomless ocean blue of his eyes, or sense anything but his power looming over me on the astral. Our tails are twined together there. I can feel it, just like I feel the words I can never say beating against the inside of my brain like caged birds. He shares my feelings, I know he does, but articulating them would go beyond the treason he's already committed and into the realm where only the Lord of Nightmares knows what might happen. And She's not particularly interested in being kind to Her children._

_I moan softly in disappointment as he starts to pull away. Some of the humans are applauding. I want to hurt them for that, but he grabs my wrist and holds me back._

_"Ashamed of me now, little dragon?" he asks, his other hand coming up to caress my face possessively._

_I lick my lips, tasting more blood. "No, never."_

_"Good." And he starts to lean down again_ — 

"Val! Hey, Val! Wake up! I know the lunch bell just rang, but the Headmistress is gonna be really pissed off if she finds you asleep here!" 

"Guh . . ." I forced my eyes open, discovering that I was sitting in one of the hard wooden chairs in the school library, my head pillowed on my arms, thankfully, and not directly on an open book, because there was half-dried drool on my chin. Kellelan, the half-elf who was the closest thing I had to a friend, was leaning over me with his hand on my shoulder. And I had a hard-on. _Great. Just great._

"I've got plenty of cred with the Headmistress, Kel. She'd probably just let it go." I sat up and scrubbed the drool off my face with the back of my hand. My brain was starting to work again, kind of. I'd come up here after my second tutoring session to look at the shipment of new books that had come in a couple of days ago, and either I'd picked the wrong one to read or I'd been more tired than I thought, because it looked like I'd dozed off. 

"Well, aren't you lucky, teacher's pet." He was grinning as he said it, though. The grin changed into a leer as I pushed my chair back. "I guess you were having a pretty good dream." 

"The best," I shot back, but I could feel my face getting hot. _I think I just had my first kiss. In a dream._ And I didn't know what to think about it. Wasn't it supposed to be girls that you did that kind of stuff with? I mean, I knew . . . theoretically . . . that there were guys who preferred to kiss and make out with and . . . um . . . other guys, but I'd never thought I might be one of them. But . . . my dream-man . . . Not only had that kiss given me a pop-up, but it had warmed me all the way down to my toes and left me with a tingly buzz in my brain as well as between my legs. It had been _wonderful_ , and I wanted to do it again, but I also felt like I shouldn't. _I need to figure this out._

Well, there was a guy here. What did I think of him? 

The light falling through the library window turned Kel's strawberry blonde hair into a crown of pure gold, and made his freckles stand out sharply. He'd just hit a growth spurt of his own, and it was making him all gawky, knees and elbows standing out on skinny limbs. Not at all like my dream-man, who had to be . . . at least thirty, I thought, if he was human, and probably older. Either way, he had a well-developed, mature body, powerfully muscled. And tall. Really tall. Kel was shorter than I was. And my hard-on was deflating, which I figured meant that I wasn't interested in my friend _that_ way. 

That didn't prove anything, though. Maybe I had a thing I'd never noticed before for older men, or big muscle-y men, or— 

"Man, are you even listening? That must have been some dream! Who was it? Adaranya from class 9-B? I mean, she's already got tits almost as big as our teacher's! Or maybe Genesiala? She—" 

"It wasn't anyone you know," I said truthfully. "You know the store gets out-of-town customers." Also true. "There was, um, this tall redhead . . ." 

"Oh- _ho_. So you like _mature_ women, do you?" 

"I didn't say that," I grumbled. "Are we having lunch or not?" 

The school provided lunch for both staff and students—it was one of the things Filia-mama paid those obscene tuition fees for. Today was Valwinsday, so we were given vegetable stew to go with our bread and cheese. I would have preferred something with meat in it, but I wouldn't get it here, since more of the students practiced traditional elven vegetarianism than not. Tomorrow would be roasted tubers, and then we'd get mushroom soup on Rangortsday and stuffed eggplant at the end of the week. Always the same progression. No wonder I spent most of my time here bored out of my mind. 

Kel and I sat at the end of one of the big tables in the dining hall. No one wanted to be beside either the too-bright dragon weirdo or the halfbreed magic nerd who had absolutely no magical talent of his own. We were both used to it, and at least no one tried to beat either of us up anymore. A couple of the dumber bullies had tried that on me in my first year at Mossport Comprehensive, and discovered that even very young dragons were much stronger than elves. After that, they'd left me alone. 

Today there were a bunch of students crowded around one of the staff tables, two and three layers deep. I couldn't see past them to whoever was actually at the table. 

"What the hell?" I asked Kel, jerking my head in that direction. 

"The recruiter for the Sorcerer's Guild is here to test interested students." Kel sighed with envy. He'd go to the test again, of course, and fail again. Like he did every year. 

"Old Lanyo doesn't usually draw this kind of crowd." I gulped down my stew. Maybe if I finished quickly enough, I'd be able to get seconds. The food might be boring, but it wasn't horrible, and I was hungry. I wasn't old enough yet to be able to fuel my body off positive astral energies alone. 

Kel shook his head. "It's someone new this year. So at least we should get a different demo. You should come and watch." 

"You mean you want moral support," I said, snorting. 

"Well . . . yeah, but you're a better spellcaster than I am. Maybe they'll offer you a scholarship or something." 

"You know I'd never be allowed to accept it." 

"Yeah, your foster-mom is _way_ overprotective. You could slip away in the dead of night—" 

"Can it," I said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "I'm not going to do that to her. It's just another nine years, and then she'll let me out of this stupid school." I might have been more determined to get away from Mossport Comprehensive if I'd had some real idea of what I wanted to do with my future, but I had no clue, beyond the kind of silly daydreams all guys have. It had always felt like I was waiting for something. 

I went with Kel to the recruitment session anyway, since it was at least a change of pace. They held it outside, in the field-yard-thing that was enclosed on three sides by the C-shaped school building. And Kel had been right: the presiding mage wasn't old Lanyo the Orange this year, but a middle-aged woman who called herself Marni the Steel-Grey, with robes to match. She said she was an expert in black magic, which made her only the second one I'd ever met . . . and I'd been too young the last time Lina Inverse had visited Filia-mama to have an intelligent conversation with her. 

"Some people will tell you that black magic is innately evil," Marni told us after introducing herself. "That isn't true. While it channels the power of the Mazoku, it can be used for good purposes as well. Most summoning spells are black magic, and some of those are quite benign. And even the Dragon Slave, the most destructive spell of conventional black magic, can be used to destroy lesser members of the Mazoku race." She stopped and looked around at the silently watching students. "I know you're waiting for me to give a demonstration," she said, with a warm smile that made her look like someone's mother. "But I'm not going to cast any spells today. _You_ are going to show your friends just how impressive magic can be." 

_That_ caused some muttering and shuffling among the other students. Kel's eyes went teary and shiny at the same time. I'd never seen anyone do that except Jillas, at family weddings. It was more impressive on someone with both eyes still intact. 

Marni pulled some kind of magical device out of her pocket that looked like a very small window in an ornate frame, and looked at us through it. She jerked in surprise, then looked again. In my direction, and Kel's. Kel was close to jumping out of his uniform. I just rolled my eyes. 

"You—the young man with the aqua hair. You have some kind of magical training, do you not?" 

There was only one student in the entire school who had green or blue hair, and I wasn't the only one who knew it. In fact, someone off to my left groaned and said, "Val _again_?" so loudly that everyone heard it. 

I sighed, and pitched my voice to carry. "White magic, yes, and a little shamanism. My foster-mother is a former shrine priestess of Vrabazard, and she started me on lessons as soon as I was old enough to get the Chaos Words right." 

Marni nodded. "Your aura is extremely well-developed, to the point where it's difficult for me to get a reading on anyone else. Could you step away from the other students for a moment?" 

I shrugged and walked over to where the headmistress and the two instructors monitoring the demonstration were standing. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I leaned back against the wall of the south wing. 

Marni picked four students from the audience—not including Kel, who looked like he was about to cry—and had them do various simple, non-destructive spells. Lighting first, then Levitation, Aqua Create, and that silly fireworks-illusion spell I'd never cared enough about to learn the Power Words for. Some of the younger students looked impressed, anyway. And the ones involved in the demo, and their friends. Everyone else had seen Lanyo do it all before. 

The sorceress wasn't stupid. She could see she was losing her audience. I was a little surprised at her next words though. 

"I don't usually include anything within my specialty as part of my demonstrations, but it's very rare that the classes I speak to include someone with such a strong, trained will. Val, was it? Would you please come over here?" She pointed to a spot right beside herself. I rolled my eyes a little, but did as I was told. "Do you know any black magic, Val?" 

I shook my head. "Only some theory." And I wasn't sure how much of it was accurate. Given how much Filia-mama hated Xellos, who was annoying but not too bad, I was pretty sure she had a skewed view of anything to do with Mazoku. 

"Well, it isn't all that different from white magic—or holy magic, as I understand it—in terms of the basic techniques required, so you shouldn't have too much trouble with a simple summoning spell." 

_Assuming the Mazoku like me any better than the Dragon Gods do,_ I thought but didn't say. Only Jillas and Filia-mama knew that although I'd been taught holy spells, I couldn't cast them. Rangort, Valwin, and Vrabazard all seemed to refuse me their power. I didn't understand why. Filia-mama had always said chidingly that it was because I didn't have enough faith . . . but I'd seen her giving me odd, sidelong looks too, whenever another casting failed. 

"I'll give it a shot," I said. _Breathe out, right. Center yourself._ Just like I was about to attempt a first casting of any other spell. 

"All right, then. I'll give you the Chaos Words. Proceed at your own pace. This is fairly advanced magic, and no one's going to laugh at you if you can't do it." 

_Want to make a bet?_ I thought . . . but I forced the other students out of my mind as the sorceress began to speak again. 

"Flame that runs in the shadow of the dunes," I repeated after her, "heed the ties of blood and bone. All that is within me, I offer to you that he may present himself before me in the flesh!" I could feel the force of the spell gathering around me, pouring through me, forming a breeze that ruffled my hair and the hem of my shirt. It was . . . weirdly comfortable. Like I'd channeled this power before. I pointed at an empty space where the grass underfoot had been ground to dirt and said firmly, " _Vol ga dooga!_ " 

A tiny wisp of power caressed me subtly as the air above the empty chunk of dirt rippled. It felt like . . . his hand . . . my dream-man . . . I gritted my teeth as the spell started trying to ooze away from me and grabbed control of it back. Now, I told myself, was not the time to think about this. Not at all. 

Then the garm emerged, and, well, a jet-black fire-breathing dog-thing four feet high at the shoulder tends to draw your attention. Especially when you can sense you've got it on a magic leash. I found myself grinning the fierce, wild grin I'd worn in my dreams. 

" _Good_ boy," I crooned, and the garm looked at me expectantly. "Now, _sit_." I just hoped I didn't have to force it. I could tell from the way the spell sat on my mind that I could control all of its actions if I wanted to, but manipulating it like a puppet would be ten times more difficult than just keeping it here. 

It gave me another look—peeved, I decided. And sat. 

I could have run it through an entire series of dog tricks, but I was pretty sure it would have started to fight me around the time I hit "play dead", so instead . . . "Come here." 

It ambled over to me and sat down beside me, and I ruffled its ears. It looked . . . kind of torn, I think. Or maybe embarrassed that it was enjoying being treated like a pet. I was hardly an expert on reading the facial expressions of oversized semi-magical _dogs_. 

"Let's give them some fireworks," I suggested, grinning again. "Aim straight up, though. I don't want to have to spend the rest of the day casting Aqua Create because you touched off something I didn't want you to." 

The garm _whuffed_ and tilted its head back. 

"I'm not sure that's a good—" Marni began, then bit her lip as the garm breathed out. And for a moment, the sky was filled with fire. Which was interesting, since dragon breath is strictly straight-line, not diffuse like that. The sorceress muttered something about sticking to Ferious Breed if she ever tried this again. 

"Good boy," I said to the garm, ruffling its ears again. "You can go home now," I added, relaxing the spell. The garm nuzzled me—it had a really warm nose—and disappeared with a soft pop. Everyone was staring at me. "I'm going to check the roof," I said before they could snap out of it. "The fire should have been well above it, but if there are any hot spots, we need to know sooner rather than later. _Ray Wing!_ " 

Up on the roof, I sat down in the lee of a chimney, wrapping my arms around myself and ignoring the voices that were starting to shout up at me from below. 

What the _hell_ had gotten into me down there? I hadn't been worried at all about the damage the garm's breath might do. I mean, I'd taken precautions, but it had all been . . . weirdly practical. I hadn't been afraid, and I hadn't given a damn if anyone else was. Like I'd faced death and worse so many times that there was no fear left in me. Like I'd been dream-me, hardened and scarred. Like casting black magic had _done_ something to me. 

I shivered, remembering the warm, _welcoming_ feeling of that power, that had reminded me so strongly of my dream-man's touch. _Why?_ I didn't understand. He couldn't be a . . . a . . . 

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Consider the facts._

I was acquainted with one real, bona fide, certified Mazoku: Xellos. Who popped up out of nowhere, floated in midair more often than he stood on the ground, never consumed anything but tea even when he hung around for a couple of days, and—as Jillas had once pointed out to me—often forgot to breathe, since he didn't actually _need_ to. 

My dream-man . . . I could remember the warmth of his breath tickling my skin. I'd dreamed eating with him more than once. There was absolutely nothing Xellos-like about him. 

"He isn't even _real_ ," I growled out loud at the roof. _And I refuse to wish that he was here right now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Vol Ga Dooga spell does exist in canon, but the Chaos Words for it are never given. I made the ones here up, using Ferious Breed as a model.


	3. Chapter 3

_When the hand shoots out of the alcove and yanks me inside, I just about blast its owner. Not that I could hurt him, but there are times when that self-satisfied smirk of his rubs me the wrong way, despite how I feel about him._

_"I'm supposed to be on my way to that stupid strategy meeting," I point out. "And so are you."_

_"It isn't like they can hold it without us. And I wanted a bit of private time with you, little dragon."_

_I'm tempted to drive a good, hard punch into his stomach as he begins nuzzling my hair, but . . . damn him, how can he make me this horny without touching anything but my arm and my head? I'm not sure I'd be able to_ walk _if I left here now._

_"We're going to have to make it quick. Even if the meeting can wait, someone could come along and interrupt us here." Not that I care_ that _much about being caught. Anyone here who hasn't figured out by now that we use our shared bed for more than just sleeping is an idiot._

_He chuckles. "And what are they going to see, other than my coat flipped forward over your shoulder? They'd have to be total fucking voyeurs."_

_"I think some of them are. Lord Egrim has been looking at you with lust on his mind." I unknot his virulently golden-yellow outer belt while he undoes the buttons, and soon I have thick folds of the garish fabric draped across my shoulder, half-cocooning us. "He might be willing to crawl around on the floor if it meant getting a good look."_

_"Let the conceited little fucker try. I'll blast him into next week." Then, more softly, "You know I don't want anyone but you, little dragon."_

_I moan into the kiss that follows, fumbling at his inner belt. He already has my pants down around my thighs—unfairly, his hands never seem to shake. Now they're tracing wandering paths over my hipbones and belly until I finally manage to release him from his clothes._

_He makes a soft noise, barely more than a vibration in his throat, as I curl my hand around his cock, and then my other hand too. Even after that, I'm not covering the entire length, and my fingers and thumb don't meet, since his dick is built on the same ridiculous scale as the rest of him. He's absolutely perfect._

_The vibration rises to a full growl as I stroke the length of him from the balls up, then rub the pad of my thumb over the sensitive head of his erection. I wish I could get my mouth on him, but there's no time for us to get off separately, and no space for a 69 unless I want to try a handstand. This will have to do._

_Then his hand, which was tracing lazy circles around my navel, slides down lower, rough callus just brushing teasingly against my erection as he slips a finger in behind it to play with my balls, and I groan. He muffles me with another kiss, firm, nipping at my lower lip as he withdraws. I think for a hazy moment that he's drawn blood—he's always at his most dragon-like at moments like this._

_One fingertip runs slowly up the underside of my cock, and I just about lose it right there. The only reason I don't is that I know he'd laugh._

_"Do you know what I'd like to do to you right now?" he asks, and I shudder at the deep, gravelly sound of his voice in my ear._

_"Tell me," I whisper._

_"I want to run my talons through your feathers . . . pin you down and mount you properly, no half-assed hands-and-knees human shit . . . get my teeth on the back of your neck . . . fill you with my eggs until you're so big you'd burst if you tried to move . . ."_

_Eggs . . . oh,_ fuck _. . . I've never thought about eggs before, and even my dragon body isn't built for it, but the idea sends a weird tremor through me . . . heavy with his eggs, so that everyone,_ everyone _would know what he is to me without my needing to tell them . . . I whimper and spill against his palm, unable to help myself._

_"Good, little dragon. That's . . . good . . ." His voice is thick, and he's fucking my curled hands hard._

_"If they were_ your _eggs, I'd find a way," I whisper throatily, and he growls and thrusts and comes, slicking my palm._

_I run my fingers along his softening cock to make sure I get every drop, then raise my hand to my mouth and slowly begin licking it clean, relishing the taste of him and the weird little tingling shocks in my throat. He isn't really fertile in this form, but his seed is full of his power, and the sensation created by taking it in is_ — 

The sound of the wind thwacking a tree branch against the wall of the house slammed me back to consciousness, eyes wide, panting. I'd creamed the inside of my pajamas. _Ceiphied_ , I couldn't believe I'd dreamed that. Him _touching_ me like that . . . saying those things to me . . . me licking his spunk off my fingers, for Valwin's sake . . . It had been disturbing and disgusting and sexy and wonderful all at the same time, and I could feel my wrung-out cock trying to harden again even as my stomach lurched. 

I rolled over onto my back, staring at the moonlight dimly reflected from the ceiling as my stomach slowly settled again. _Eggs_ , I thought, and felt my face getting hot. _Females_ were the ones who carried eggs, and I wasn't one. How could I have thought, even for just a moment and in a dream, that I would want . . . ? 

_They do say people go a bit crazy during sex,_ I told myself. And, _I . . . think I want to dream more of that._ Even with the embarassing bits, I had never, ever felt so good before. It hadn't been like using my own hand to get rid of . . . urges . . . at all. He'd made me feel warm and safe and . . . and loved, more than Filia-mama ever had. My dream-dragon-man. The . . . dirty talk—I felt myself getting even redder just thinking about it—that had been about dragon mating. Or at least I thought it had. Filia-mama had brushed me off the one time I'd tried to ask her . . . questions . . . so I'd had to put the stuff Jillas had told me about how humans and beastmen did it together with some stuff about the life cycle of plasma dragons that I'd found in the school library to get an idea of how all that was supposed to work. If _he'd_ known, then he had to be a dragon of some kind. Or at least I thought he did. 

The part about licking my hand clean had just been _gross_ , though. I didn't understand why anyone would want to do that. Even if it hadn't tasted all that bad. And had I really been thinking of sucking on his . . . ? _Augh . . ._

"I'm pretty sure I'm going crazy," I told the ceiling. There had to be some way to make better sense of all this. 

I'd never quite dared to ask Filia-mama about prophetic dreams, although I was pretty sure that priestesses were expected to know something about the subject. Maybe it was time that I did. 

Things at school were . . . weird, that day. It was pretty obvious that the headmistress wanted to punish me for looking like I'd been about to set the building on fire, but just _looking_ like it wasn't against the school rules, and for some reason, the grumpy old woman _liked_ me, which was why she'd put off deciding what she was going to do about me until the next day in the first place. So I got off with about an hour's worth of lecturing around the edges about "endangering school property" even though she also said that I'd "done the responsible thing" by going up to the roof afterwards to check it over, and without ever admitting that the _real_ problem was that I'd frightened her. And she didn't tell Filia-mama about it, thank Ceiphied. 

The second weird thing was the Guild tests. Well, Kel flunked them as usual—old Lanyo had told him once that he had less magical ability than most rocks. Marni was more tactful, but, well, Kel couldn't even cast Lighting, so there wasn't much that could be done. I refused the tests, also as usual. But at the end of the day, as I was packing up my books, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around to find Marni the Steel-Grey standing there. 

"Why didn't you take the entrance exam?" the sorceress asked. 

I shrugged. "Because I don't particularly want to join the Sorcerer's Guild. I only attended the demonstration because a friend of mine wanted moral support." 

"You have the greatest talent for black magic of anyone I've ever met. Possibly even greater than Lina Inverse or Lei Magnus. Although I suppose your family . . . if your foster-mother is a shrine priestess, she might not approve." 

"Former shrine priestess. But you're right. She wouldn't approve. She hates anything to do with Mazoku with a passion." _And a mace, and random blunt objects thrown in the Mazoku's approximate direction._

"Hmm. Nevertheless, I'd like you to take this." 

A letter, folded. It had a seal, but it was placed in such a way that it didn't actually _seal_ anything, and I unfolded and read it. _Val Ul Copt . . . skills exceed entrance exam requirements . . . admitted with a full scholarship . . . permitted to take the full membership test immediately._

"Do you actually have the authority to give me this?" I asked. 

Marni nodded. "I'm an official, board-accredited Examiner with authority to dispense scholarships, so yes. You're . . . a very cautious young man." 

I was? Well, whatever. "I'll take it, but I doubt I'll ever have any use for it." 

I slipped the letter inside one of my textbooks and hauled it home with the rest. I was up in my room dumping the books on the desk when the third weird thing of the day happened: Filia-mama knocked on my (open) door, which happened maybe twice a year. 

"Can I come in, Val?" 

"I don't see why not." From her expression, she had Something To Talk About, and I knew from experience that it was better to just get it over with than leave it to fester. Waiting made her frustrated, and when Filia-mama got frustrated she tended to yell and throw things. 

"I understand you were involved in a magic demonstration at the school yesterday that got a bit out of hand." 

I shrugged. "Sort of. No one was hurt and nothing was damaged, but a bunch of people got kind of scared." 

Filia-mama blinked several times, absorbing this. "Are you certain?" 

"You can go there and ask, if you like. A few blades of grass might have gotten trampled, I guess, but no one got so much as a paper cut. The Headmistress didn't even think it worth reporting to you that I'd been involved." 

"She sweeps things under the rug sometimes," Filia-mama grumbled. 

"I promise you that nothing dangerous happened," I said. And really, it was true—the garm had been under my complete control from the moment I'd called it up to the moment I released it. I knew better than to mention that I'd written the spell down in one of my notebooks and stored it away. "But there's something else I'd like to talk to you about." 

"This isn't about the birds and the bees, is it? You're of about that age, but I thought Jillas—" 

"This isn't about that," I interrupted before she could work herself into a condition of total embarrassment. "Or at least, not directly." 

There was a long pause while my mind blanked. How did I say this without telling her about the dreams? And why was I so sure I didn't want to tell her? 

"This is kind of difficult," I admitted. "I. Um. I'm the last ancient dragon, right?" 

"I'm afraid so." Filia-mama looked down at the floor. 

"So there aren't any other ancient dragons around to be my, uh, girlfriend?" 

"Val, you're a little young for—" 

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not saying there _is_ anyone. Not right now. But I'd like to know that it's possible. For me to have a . . . a relationship. A wife, even. Kids, maybe. Someday. If I want." 

_Fill you with my eggs,_ a voice whispered in my memory. _Shut up,_ I thought. 

"Oh, Val . . ." She shook her head. "The truth is, I really don't know. The temple didn't want us learning about . . . about . . ." 

"Sex and reproduction," I said for her. "I kind of figured that out. But didn't they tell you if it was at least possible for one kind of dragon to crossbreed with another?" 

Filia-mama shook her head. "We weren't supposed to marry outside the clan, and I never had marriage training anyway. The only person I can think of who might know would be that raw garbage." 

And there wasn't a hope in hell of getting any information out of Xellos, or at least any we could believe. 

"So there's no way to find out if I'll ever . . ." And I couldn't see how to even _try_ to steer the subject in the direction of prophetic dreams. Plus, I was blushing. _Wait a go, Val._

"Well . . ." Filia-mama seemed to be trying to decide whether to say something or not. I bit my lower lip and waited. "It really isn't a guarantee, especially not of children, but it should be enough to prove you have a chance to . . . find someone. If I can just remember the Chaos Words." 

By then, I'd figured out that she was talking about some kind of spell, but that wasn't really much help. "Um . . ." 

"Calling it a spell's an exaggeration, really. It's just a silly little cantrip that shows you your first meeting with the person who is the most likely to become your mate at the moment you cast it. The answer changes over time . . . but I've never heard of it coming up blank for anyone. Oh, I haven't thought about this since I was your age, and playing around with my friends!" Filia-mama smiled, suddenly looking very, very young. 

"Who did it show you then?" I asked, curious. 

"Some dragon I never did meet," she admitted. "But it didn't come up blank!" 

"Okay, I'll try it." At worst, it would waste ten minutes or so. At best . . . if it showed me _him_ . . . I swallowed hard. Well, it would be additional evidence he was real, right? And out there somewhere. Looking for me, even. 

What _would_ Filia-mama think if I chose another male to be my . . . mate? I really wasn't sure. It wasn't something we'd ever talked about, and there weren't many male couples in Mossport, although I'd seen a few. Enough to know that it wasn't totally unthinkable everywhere. Filia-mama had weird ideas sometimes, though. 

So ten minutes later, I found myself sitting in front of a bowl of water with a sheet of paper in my hand, and Filia-mama leaning over my shoulder. 

"Now remember, I won't be able to see what you do, so you have to tell me _everything_ ," she said eagerly, squeezing me. My shoulder was going to bruise soon if she didn't let up. 

"I know," I grumbled. I'd already made up what I thought was a suitable lie. 

"What's up?" asked Jillas, picking that moment to stroll into the kitchen. 

"It's a silly love-prediction spell that's supposed to show you who your mate's going to be," I explained. "Filia-mama really wants me to cast it." 

"Oh? What's it show if someone already mated casts it, then?" 

Filia-mama blinked. "You know, I really have no idea. Not that it should matter, in this case." 

"Um, Boss, I think you might wanna . . ." Jillas was looking from her to me and back again with an odd expression on his face. As if there was something he was worried about, but he couldn't talk about it here and now. 

I didn't give him a chance. If he didn't want me to cast the spell, that meant it might show something _interesting_. So I started in on the Chaos Words, ignoring Jillas' worried look. I mean, what was the worst that could happen? 

I sure found out the answer to _that_ one. 

" _Amor Vidis!_ " I concluded grandly. 

For a moment, nothing happened at all. The water in the bowl stayed clear enough for me to see the wiggly marks in the glaze at the bottom—it was a failure that Filia-mama hadn't been willing to put on sale in the shop. Then it darkened, and I saw a shadowy scene—the inside of a cave somewhere. A bed, and someone sitting on the edge of it, I thought, but the figure wasn't anything more than a shadow among shadows. 

_"Mmh . . . are you awake?"_ The voice, thick with sleep, sounded distant but absolutely clear. 

_"I didn't mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep, little dragon."_ Now that voice, I knew, since I'd heard it night after night. It sounded soberer than usual this time, though. Worried, even. 

_"You were going to leave without telling me, weren't you? Sometimes, you can be a real asshole."_ Light flared in the depths of the bowl, and I finally saw the face of the man sitting on the edge of the bed, with his long, blood-red hair lapping over his body but not doing a hell of a lot to conceal his nudity. And lying in the bed propped up on one elbow was a lean man with greenish hair. _Me?_ The colouring was right . . . but . . . that horn . . . although the word "horn" _had_ crossed my mind in the dreams sometimes. 

_"I hoped I was going to be finished by the time you woke up,"_ came the protest. 

_"Finished? With Lina Inverse_ and _her friends_ and _Hellmaster Phibrizzo? And you expected me to stay here and quietly sleep and_ not worry _?!"_

_"Valgaav—"_

I know that wasn't all he said, but I didn't hear any more after that name. 

_Valgaav._

Pain in every fiber of my being, where two energies warred one against the other, but there was a warm body pressed against mine, so at least I wasn't alone . . . 

_Valgaav._

_I . . . I am . . ._

Shattered blackness. I was vaguely aware of my chin hitting the edge of the bowl and water splashing everywhere. Then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not have a dragon egg mpreg fixation. Really, I don't. And there is no mpreg in this 'fic. ^_^;;;;;;


	4. Chapter 4

_I drag the slimy bastard into the main hall by the hair, kicking two of Rashatt's followers out of the way when they try to stop me. Gaav-sama's General keeps encouraging them to harass me, even though I'm stronger than they are_ and _he knows our mutual master doesn't approve._

_This time, though, he's going to have a hard time putting me in what he thinks of as my place. I smirk. I've finally found a way to show that cretin, and put_ him _in_ his _place. Oh, I'm going to enjoy this, never mind the wound on my arm or the twisting pain in my body where I've drawn off too much of my Mazoku energies, allowing some of my dragon power to fight its way free._

_As usual, there are a lot of Mazoku hanging around drinking and talking in the cavernous, torchlit room. Gaav-sama himself lounges on his throne at the far end, his chin propped on one hand while the other holds a dented silver beer stein. A flicker of interest shows on his face as I force my prisoner to the center of the room._

_"Valgaav. What have you brought us?"_

_"A present, Gaav-sama. I found this sniffing its way around the perimeter, and thought you might like to question it." I let go of the prisoner's hair, leaving him lying limply in the middle of the floor . . . although of course, that's only what his physical projection is doing. Still, I would notice if his true, astral self were more than semiconscious. "It's unusually high-powered for a mere spy," I add, kicking the prone figure in the ribs to knock it over on its back so that everyone can get a good look. I keep my smirk, aiming it more at Rashatt and Raltaak, flanking the throne, than at Gaav-sama himself._

_Rashatt stiffens. "The Beast-Priest!"_

_I raise my eyebrows. "We didn't exactly stop for introductions." Ceiphied and Ruby-Eye, I feel like something with spikes is trying to dig its way into my shoulders._ Have to keep control, _I tell myself, and bite the inside of my cheek._

_"You're telling me you took him down_ by yourself _?" Rashatt sounds like he's trying to inject a mocking tone into his voice, but his expression is oddly wooden, and I can taste his fear. I wonder if he realizes that? That I can feed from him? That I'm strong enough to feed from anyone here except Gaav-sama himself?_

_I shrug. "I was doing a routine sweep of the perimeter and didn't have time to call for reinforcements." The implication is obvious. Even Rashatt isn't that stupid._

_Gaav-sama sets his mug down with a thud and a slight splash, and rises from his throne. He descends the two steps from the dais and begins to slowly circle me and my prize, examining us both intently. The torchlight creates little red highlights in the blue of his eyes. He could have much better lamps put in, of course, but I've come to understand that it's all part of the game. Everything from his personal appearance and behaviour to the way the hall is furnished is an exercise in projecting the image of a crude, barbaric commander of crude, barbaric warriors, downplaying his knowledge and sophisticated intellect because he finds it useful to be underestimated._

_Now he chuckles, grinning widely as he pokes my prize in the ribs with the toe of his boot. "You put some nice holes in him._ Very _good work. I'm not even sure how I'm going to reward you for this—no one's ever done it before. You're worthy of the name I gave you." His eyes don't match the grin as he claps me on the shoulder, though. They're shadowed. Worried? And his hand only just comes down hard enough to make a clear smacking sound, although even that's enough to make me repress a wince. "For now, though, I'm going to need you to tell me more about the fight, and what he was doing when you found him. Rashatt! Take charge of the prisoner."_

_He shifts us out of the hall before Rashatt can react, and the warped space deposits us in a familiar, quiet place: his personal quarters, where no one will interrupt us. The grin falls from his face as soon as we're out of sight._

_"How bad are you?" he asks._

_"My wings tried to pop," I admit with a grimace. "I managed to keep them in, but it hurts like a son of a bitch." Red-hot pain in both shoulders and shooting down my spine to where the base of my tail should be._

_"Let me see."_

_That's a command, and I obey it willingly, taking off my cape, then my shirt. His hands are warm on my skin as he strokes and soothes both my body and my power, leaving a pleasant tingle behind._

_"Better?" he asks at length._

_"Yeah. I . . . should have had better control."_ I'm sorry. _Not words that are safe to say here, in a Mazoku stronghold, although I think he would take them in the spirit that they were meant. "I'm pretty sure I only won the fight because I managed to get the drop on him. He was busy watching Mazenda and didn't notice me."_

_Gaav-sama snorts softly. "Most Mazoku couldn't have scratched him, even with a sneak attack. Xellos is as strong as Rashatt and Raltaak put together. Until now, he's had no equals to worry about. You did exceedingly well, little dragon. I wasn't kidding about a reward, but I've got no idea what to offer you."_

Kill off the golden dragon clan that follows the Fire Dragon King, right down to the last egg. _He could do it without much difficulty—hell,_ I _could probably do it, now. Just wave my hand and knock them out of the sky, like Xellos is supposed to have done during the Kouma War. But . . . it would attract attention, upset the balance between the Mazoku and the Dragon Gods that's existed since Ragradia's death. And since he isn't really on either side any longer, Gaav-sama would be targeted by both if the cease-fire ever broke._

_I can't do that to him. Not after the way he's fought to keep me alive. I couldn't control my power at all at first. My wings erupted at the drop of a hat, and I was in constant agony. He had to spend hour after hour working with me until I figured out how to shape my Mazoku power without also invoking the Ceiphied-given light of my birthright, and soothing both powers back down when I failed. He was unexpectedly gentle while he was doing it, and as patient as stone._

_Hell, I passed out in his lap one time when the strain got to be too much. He could have moved me to a bed, or even dumped me on the floor, and I doubt I would have noticed, but he was still there when I woke up, stroking my hair with one big hand._

_He's become more than my saviour. He's my anchor and the center of my world, and if anyone ever tries to harm him, I'll destroy them._

_His hand's still resting on my shoulder, steady and warm. And there's an ache building inside me, in a part of me that should have died with my people._

_"Mate with me," I blurt. His hand jerks against my skin, and his eyebrows jump, and for a long moment, neither of us says anything while that uncanny blue gaze tries to dissect me. Those eyes of his really are like the ocean, with a darkness beneath the glittering blue surface, a darkness that descends to impossible depths where primal creatures lurk. They're . . . fascinating._

_"Sit down," he says, and it's a command, not a request. I feel something jerk inside me, a knife-sharp pain. "I'm not refusing you, little dragon, but I need to talk to you first." And he pushes me gently toward a chair. I sit, my feelings in an impossible jumble, and he takes the chair across from me._

_"If you'd just said 'fuck me', that would have been easy," he says slowly. "'Make love to me' would have been a little tougher, since it's against my nature, but I could have managed it. The part of me that has a sex drive at all would be happy enough to jump your bones. But 'mate with me' isn't just about sex. You're asking for a commitment, little dragon. More than that, you're offering to_ make _a commitment. Accepting my power in the name of survival . . . even your dead might be willing to forgive you that. This is . . . something else. Are you really willing to put me before your revenge?"_

_He's still watching me with that incredible intensity. I force myself to meet his eyes, and to keep meeting them._

_"The most important thing about the dead," I say slowly, "is that they're just that: dead. Nothing I can do now can help them in any way, and I gave up on the idea of living my life the way they would have wanted the moment I took your hand. I haven't given up on revenge. I still want those fucking golden_ hypocrites _to understand what they've done, in the instant before I kick them into the Sea of Chaos for a little swim. But_ hurrying _it isn't necessary. It can wait until the right moment. My dead . . . won't care."_

_He says nothing, but I can see from the slight frown that he's deep in thought._

_"There's this, too," I add. "I know I'm of the age where my instincts are pushing me to mate, but I've met hundreds—hell, probably_ thousands _—of people of various races since that night in the desert, and you're the only one that . . . um, awakes any kind of interest." I flush, but force myself to go on. "Like you said, mating isn't just about sex. The bond won't form unless I'm emotionally engaged with my partner. I can't imagine anyone else who could understand what I've become, but you . . . already know. Because we're alike." Both caught between one thing and the other, both abandoned by those who had once been our people, both . . . lonely. Although I doubt he'd ever admit it, and I'm not sure he even realizes it. But it's clear to me that he has emotional needs that the other Mazoku can't serve. Otherwise, why would he seek me out so often? "But if you don't think I'm worthy of you, I'll understand." Ultimately, I'm just a mortal creature that he's fed a bit of his power to. He deserves an equal partner, not a battered dragon who can't control his own magic and barely knows whether he's coming or going._

_"Don't give me that shit," he says. Then he sighs. "It's true that you aren't entirely what I hoped you would be, little dragon, but that isn't your fault. It's mine. I stuffed my power into you too fast and too roughly, because you were dying in my arms and I barely knew what the fuck I was doing. If I hadn't screwed it up, your power would mesh properly, instead of . . ." A shrug and a tiny gesture seem to encompass everything from those first painful months to the state I was in today when he brought us here._

_"I can't really blame you for that, either. I mean, I don't think anyone's_ ever _created a dragon-Mazoku chimera before." I smile wryly, and he snorts, but the pained look's already vanished from those ocean blue eyes. "Can I ask . . . what you were hoping for?"_

_He shrugs. "What do you get when you mix holy and black magic together?"_

_It takes me a moment to get it. Fusion magic . . . chaos magic . . . oh,_ hell _. . . "You can't be serious." On the astral, where I never leave my true form, my scales hackle, and I rub at the back of my neck, trying to chase the sensation away._

_"You might have ended up more powerful than I am myself. The two of us together would have formed a third faction that neither the Mazoku nor the Dragon Gods would have been able to ignore. In short, I was intending to use you." He's watching me again, his gaze steady, but . . . if I could taste his emotions, I wonder if there wouldn't be an underlying tang of guilt there._

_"I never expected otherwise. I've got some idea of what kind of risk you took that night. I never did believe you would have done it_ only _because you felt an emotional connection with me. I don't hold it against you."_

_"Little dragon . . ."_

_"Mate with me, Gaav-sama."_ It's what we both need. _I can't actually say those words, but I'm certain he knows._

_He takes my hand in his, still watching, testing, considering, and lifts it. I gasp and bite my lower lip as I feel the warmth of his lips and tongue against my knuckles. I can feel a part of my mind that's been untouched until now forcing itself open, readying itself to receive the imprint of my chosen mate, in a wash of pleasure-pain. I feel dizzy, hungry, empty, eager._

_When he rises to his feet and lifts me from my chair to claim my mouth, I do nothing but hold on, letting him support me. He tastes of salt and metal—blood and steel and tears—and I let myself drown in him. He smells of steel, too, steel and human and the musk of a mature male dragon, as he lifts me in his arms and carries me to the bed._

_He deposits me on my back and flings his coat aside, then kneels astride my legs and begins exploring my upper body, his eyes almost glowing with intensity as he peppers my skin with kisses and little nips._

_"Gaav-sama," I whisper as he makes marks that disappear as soon as they darken my skin. I bear his permanent mark already, the scar on my chest that throbs as he runs his fingers over it. I've been his ever since that night._

_"_ Val _." It's throaty, almost a growl. He's yanking the rest of my clothes from me now, and pulling off his own. His body is sleek and hard-muscled, beautiful in its way. His dragon-form must be magnificent, and I wish it were possible for me to see it as more than an astral shadow. For now, I feast my eyes on the contours of his chest and arms, outlined by a sprinkle of blood-red hair. I reach up to touch, wanting to feel the strength of him. His biceps bunch and flex against my palms. "Valgaav. There won't be any turning back after this, little dragon."_

_"And I'm glad," I say fiercely, drawing a chuckle from him._

_"All right, then. I'm not going to hold back." His eyes are burning with a dark flame as he looks me over again, and when he touches me, each point of contact seems to tingle, awaking an echo in a deep part of my mind that's so hungry it's almost driving me mad. But the last barrier isn't down yet._

_His hands are roving lower now, laying claim to my belly, my hips, my thighs. Then his hand is between my legs, and a trilling cry, a mating call, pushes its way up my throat as I press my cock against his fingers. I want to spread my legs, to give him better access, but I can't until he shifts, rearranging us so that his knees are between mine, rather than the other way around._

_He takes his time there, fingering me, weighing my balls in the palm of his hand as though trying to decide whether I'm worth putting out to stud or not. As though that's going to be a concern. I just let my hands rest lightly on whatever part of his body I can reach. I don't have any delusions about which of us is in charge here. Whatever he might have wanted to make of me, I'm in no way his equal._

_He's reaching further back now, sliding his hands between the mattress and my skin so that he can cup my ass. I immediately bend my knees and raise my hips—I've never_ done _this before, but I know how it's supposed to work. He runs his fingers along the crack between my buttocks, and I shudder and trill again as they rub roughly over the pucker there, because I don't dare say_ please _._

_I half-expect him to plunge right in, but instead the first thing to breach my body is a slick finger—slick with what, I neither know nor care. It still burns as it worms its way deeper inside me, forcing muscles to stretch in a way they're not accustomed to, but the knowledge of_ why _it's there, to prepare the way for him, just strengthens the fluttering heat gathering in my belly._

_I knew I wanted him. I never realized I wanted him so_ much _. He's so warm and so strong and I can feel the pain of loss fading into tatters in the back of my mind as a second finger presses inside me. He pushes a bit deeper, and a wave of pure physical pleasure rolls through my body as his fingers rub against me just so. There's no need to think—just_ feel _, and let him figure out how our bits are supposed to mesh together._

_He mounts me at last with a rough growl, and it hurts and it feels like I'm going to split open from the sheer size of his cock, but it also feels so right and so good as his fingers curl around my erection and he begins to stroke it again, matching the slow rhythm he's rocking his hips to. Gradually the pain fades, and the heat begins to build in my belly again, and I start rocking along with him, matching his tempo at first, then speeding up, trying to get him to fuck me harder and faster, because the pain is gone and it feels_ so _good and I want to give him everything that's in me. I can feel my balls getting full and heavy, and the last barrier inside me wavering and thinning—not much longer now . . ._ so _good . . . pressure and tension building and building and—_

_I roar as the forces inside me explode, my voice echoing from the stone walls as my body convulses with pleasure and the barrier shatters and his power washes over me like a tidal wave. The empty place inside me fills, accepting the imprint of his essence, marking me again as his in a new and deeper way._

_"G-Gaav-sama," I whisper shakily. His eyes are glowing a brilliant red as he pounds into me—three hard thrusts, four . . ._

_"_ Mine! _" It's a growl that rises to a roar as he pumps his seed into me—I have something of him in me, not just his power, but something_ physical _, and my back arches as I trill again, my body forcing itself to one last dry convulsion of pleasure._

_He stills over me with one final roll of his hips. His hair's come loose from its confining ring and pours over us both, a silken waterfall the colour of blood. We're both breathing raggedly as the glow fades from his eyes._

_"It's never hit me like that before," he mutters at last, looking away._

_"Maybe you needed to be with another dragon for it to be right," I suggest, allowing myself to smirk, just a little._

_There's a hint of a grin on his face too. "Maybe I did," he admits. He pulls out of me, and I expect him to throw me off the bed . . . but instead he settles down beside me and buries his face in my hair, curling one arm possessively around me. "Fuck, you smell good."_

_"So do you." The dragon scent is heavy in my nostrils as we—_

I woke disoriented. At first, all I knew was that the narrow bed I was lying in wasn't my bed at the citadel, or his, or the rough nest of furs in the cave that I'd thrown together after . . . after . . . 

Memory slammed into me, the last few bits of the world slotting into place. I could feel the burning in my eyes as I forced the tears back, and bared my teeth in a silent snarl at nothing. Gaav-sama was gone, and I . . . why was I even still here? 

_She_ had sent me back, in that last moment were everything crumbled. I'd just wanted to die and return to my mate, to not have to feel those empty spaces inside myself where he'd been torn from me, leaving my spirit a raw and festering ruin, but the Golden King, the Lord of Nightmares, would have none of it. She'd cast me back into hell, and I couldn't see why. Unless it had _amused_ Her. 

What the hell was I supposed to do now? Trapped in a hatchling's body, my powers diminished, and although the torn parts of my spirit seemed to have healed a bit, it was all scar tissue, like the stump of a missing limb. I was sane, or something like it, rather than trapped in an orgy of suicidal rage, but I would rather have been mad. I would rather have been dead. 

I _would not_ cry. I _would not_ lie down and give up. I would channel my negative emotions into anger, as he had taught me, and use that to fuel my fight against an indifferent goddess. 

There had to be something I could do to piss the Golden One off. 

Although it would be pretty difficult like this. I looked down at my skinny hatchling body with loathing. No muscle, no reflexes. An ordinary bandit could probably outfight me. And I didn't have a tenth of the magic that I'd once wielded. Never mind Xellos—in my current state _Mazenda_ would have been able to kick my ass into next week. 

I threw the bedding aside and stood up, sneering at the room in general, with its schoolbooks and shelves of old toys not yet discarded. Fit for a hatchling. Fit _only_ for a hatchling. 

My face felt odd, as though the muscles weren't used to being tensed in this way. Well, they'd learn. Just like the rest of this useless carcass. 

It was light outside, the pale light of early morning on a day some two weeks after the summer solstice. Sensible people wouldn't be getting up until later, but who the fuck cared about being sensible? I had other things on my mind. 

A rummage through the dresser on the far side of the room found me some usable trousers, cut loose enough to move in but not so loose that they looked like they belonged on a clown. Those and some shoes would be good enough—I didn't want a shirt, even though it would have kept me from needing to look at smooth, scarless skin. Rage shot through me as I touched that place on my chest where Gaav-sama's mark should have been. 

I'd been stripped of everything, only to be forced to live a lie. Because hatchling-me had known nothing else. _Why?_ What was the point? I'd rather that the truth broke me than to have things be like this. 

The room they'd given hatchling-me had a nice big window, and I left the house that way, using a Levitation spell to cushion the drop. Oh, I wasn't going for _good_ , not yet—I had food and shelter here, and I needed to think and work on building up this stupid carcass so that I didn't feel so vulnerable. 

Mossport, like any human city more than a couple of hundred years old, had its odd corners and random cul-de-sacs. One of them was located a brisk fifteen-minute walk from the rabbit warren of a house where hatchling-me lived. It was blocked off from the street by a low gate sealed with a chain and padlock so rusted that I doubted they could be separated from the wood without crumbling to bits, and had been sealed up for as long as I could remember, meaning a good half a century. 

I vaulted the gate, disgusted with myself for needing the help of a Levitation spell again, and examined the area, hands on hips. It was an L-shaped yard, with the gate at the end of the short branch of the L. The long branch housed several piles of junk and a decrepit well with a leaky bucket whose water always tasted brackish. 

One of the junk piles produced a rusty metal rod with a narrow enough diameter for me to grip comfortably. Perfect. 

The basic drill should have been automatic. I'd done it millions of times. Cut-step-cut-step-thrust-high guard-low guard-back. Eight movements, all ingrained in my body. My old body, that was. Not this one. By the time I got the thrust right, there was sweat rolling down my back and my twiggy arms burned. I decided it was time for a break and went over to the well. The water tasted awful, but it was cool and wet and let me sluice the sweat from my back and the rust from my hands. 

Months. I was going to need months of this, if not years, to build myself back up to a reasonable fighting weight. Close to half a century, if I wanted this body to be fully mature as well. 

I wasn't going to last that long. Even if I gritted my teeth and endured the aching emptiness inside me as the years that separated me from him mounted up, there was no way I was going to be able to pretend to be the charming, empty-headed little hatchling that everyone around me expected. If I could make that last a week, I'd be surprised. 

I needed a path _away_ , to somewhere I could hide while I built my strength back up. Somewhere that I wouldn't have to worry about running into stray golden dragons until I was ready to take them on. 

And once I was ready . . . do what? Go where? Finding a way to attack the Lord of Nightmares Herself was a pretty tall order, but I was _not_ going to let this go. If She was going to be stupid enough to send me back here _alone_ . . . What the fuck had She been thinking, anyway? One ancient dragon, even the last ancient dragon, even an ancient dragon who had briefly possessed the power of Darkstar and Volfied, should have been beneath Her notice. I was pretty insignificant in the scheme of things, really. Was I that fun to torture? 

I snarled and grabbed the metal rod again. Better to return to the measured steps of the basic sword-drill and not have to _think_. I'd come up with something sooner or later. 

By the time the sun was high, I had the form of each movement down, despite the burning of my arms and shoulders. Two or three days of this, and I would be able to move on to the next drill routine. 

As I dumped another bucket of water over my head, my stomach rumbled. I hadn't thought to bring any money with me, and my old astral pocket wasn't likely to answer to a dragon's power when it was expecting a Mazoku's. So unless I wanted to steal something, there was only one place I could get food. 

Putting off the inevitable confrontation wouldn't really benefit me, anyway. Hell, if I just left without a word, the stupid little golden would probably just come after me. She thought of me as family, I knew, even if the reverse wasn't true—hatchling-me's emotions had very little force, now that I was back in my right mind. 

I vaulted over the locked gate and headed back to the house. There were people on the streets now, a number of them staring at me. I snorted. _Let them._

The house was like an upturned hornet's nest, with fox-men rushing everywhere. Even Jillas was limping around, pointing his cane and giving orders. It was a shock to see him looking so old, and yet . . . not. Part of me remembered the burden of years piling slowly onto him, transforming him from a young fox to a patriarch with white-streaked fur, but the images felt thin. Like I'd seen them in a scrying bowl, instead of being physically present. 

"You three search the waterfront!" Jillas was yelling. "Oh, if we can't find him, the Boss is gonna—" 

I gently pushed a young fox out of the way . . . and suddenly there was a wave of stillness spreading out from me to envelop the entire yard. Jillas was staring at me. 

"V-val-dono, where have you been? We've been looking all over for you! Filia-sama thought you'd been kidnapped!" 

_Hatchling, need to act like a meek little hatchling . . ._ "I needed some time alone to think. I guess I should have left a note. Sorry." The muscles in my back twitched: I'd just admitted a mistake, which was the same thing as painting a target on my back. Among Mazoku. Among . . . normal people . . . it was just a thing you did. 

As I came even with Jillas, he actually swung his cane at me. I caught it, scowling at the sting—my hands were too soft, and this morning's activity had already raised blisters. 

"What the hell was that for?" I snapped. Probably not very hatchling-like, but I was annoyed. 

"Filia-sama was _terrified_ ," Jillas snapped right back. "You fainted during that spell, then the next morning you're gone without a trace and without telling anyone you'd woken up! What were we _s'pposed_ to think?" 

"That it wasn't any of your business. I'm not _helpless_ , Jillas." I glared at the fox, and he took a half-step backward. 

I was tempted just to tell him the truth. He and Filia were the only two people here who had known me as I truly was, and I couldn't tell _her_ . . . but Jillas never had known when to keep his mouth shut. If he found out I'd recovered my memory, she would too. And then . . . well, I wasn't sure what would happen, but I doubted it would be good. 

"Maybe you are and maybe you aren't," the fox-man said. "That doesn't change the fact that Filia-sama loves you. And she worries." 

I forced myself to ignore that when what I wanted to do was laugh in his face. _Loves me? She doesn't even_ know _me!_ And she'd tried to keep hatchling-me in ignorance. As far as I was concerned, that was an unpardonable sin. 

I climbed the front steps as the foxes dispersed; Jillas followed me. I'd expected to find the kitchen empty, or maybe a couple of the female foxes in there cooking or cleaning. Instead, the table in the corner was occupied, with a steaming teapot as its centerpiece. Filia sat there, staring down at the cup in her hands and looking miserable. 

I pretended to ignore her as I went over to rummage through the cupboards for anything edible. Bread, cheese, half a cold chicken. Cold tea. 

"He came back on his own," Jillas was reporting over by the table. "Blisters on his hands, but he doesn't seem to be really hurt. Said he had some thinking to do." 

" _Val . . ._ " Filia's voice dropped almost a full octave as she pushed her chair back from the table. Her tail popped out as she rose to her feet. "Just _what_ do you think you're doing, young man?" 

"Getting lunch." I cut thick slices from the chicken, and put together a couple of sandwiches. 

" _That isn't what I meant!_ " 

"No, I don't expect it is." Not very hatchling-like, but at least it hadn't been an attack on her. I had to keep her distracted. If she pushed me too far, I'd end up flying off the handle and probably cutting her throat. _Say something before she goes on the attack again._ "Do you know what I saw in that bowl?" 

"How can that be important enough for you to—!" 

" _I didn't see anything,_ " I said—a total lie, but an idea of how to make it work for me had suddenly popped into my head. "The bottom of the bowl was _black_ , Filia! There was no one and nothing! _I lost control of the spell because I realized that I was going to be alone for the rest of my life!_ " The bitterness in that last bit, at least, was very real. 

It shocked her out of her anger, at least. "Val . . ." 

"Don't try to comfort me," I growled. "Do you really think there's anything you can say that could fix _this_? I need to deal with it in my own way, and it's going to take a while. Just . . . leave me be." 

Maybe it would be enough to cover me for a while. I hoped so, anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

I spent the next couple of months in a self-induced hell of physical training, because it kept me from having to think. I went to bed sore and woke up sore, because you can't use magic to heal your muscle strain if you're trying to build yourself up, and I usually slept too deeply to dream. I might have been with him in my dreams, but it was a trick and a trap and every time I woke up from a dream like that, it was as though the wounds that striped my spirit had been torn open again. 

My thoughts kept circling around and around without reaching any kind of resolution. The Lord of Nightmares . . . no spell I could cast would even scratch Her, since any power I could channel would ultimately be something She had created. Attacking Her physically would be an unfunny joke at best, even if I'd still had Ragud Mezegis. How do you deal with a being like that? 

I sighed and stopped swinging the metal rod, raising it to rest against my bare shoulder, not caring that it left a streak of rust behind. At least the crumbly crud had worn off the end that I usually held, leaving the dark shine of raw iron behind. And my hands had toughened enough that I wasn't blistering them anymore. My body was visibly improving. Too bad it was the least important part of me. 

"Is that him, Lina?" 

The voice came from overhead, where two familiar people were levitating above the rooftops, one dangling below the other. 

"Looks like it might be, jellyfish. Okay, I'm taking us down!" 

"Waaah! Slower! Or we're gonna—" 

Lina Inverse put on the brakes about eight feet above the ground, drifting slowly down so that her long-time partner could find his feet before she let go of the spell. She was a little taller and more filled-out now than she was in my memories of the Darkstar incident, but it looked like she'd never gotten beyond five-foot-two and a C-cup. Other than that, at first glance, she didn't seem to have aged at all, although a second look picked out the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, signs of wear on the skin. She must have been studying white magic lately, because the other branches didn't offer that kind of preservation effect. 

Gourry Gabriev looked . . . not quite as young, but nowhere near as aged as Jillas, either. Lina had to have been casting scary-level preservation spells on him. He might have been forty, muscles still strong despite the crow's feet and the laugh lines and the streaks of white in his golden hair. He was wearing _three_ swords, one at either hip and one slung across his back. My eyes almost crossed, trying to figure out why he needed that many. Spares? 

Regardless, while we might not be embroiled in a fight now, we weren't exactly friends, either. My hand tightened around the rusty iron rod, even though I knew it was a pathetic weapon. Still, I had a better chance of beating Gourry to death with it than I did of taking on Lina Inverse in a spell battle. She'd been able to wound Gaav-sama—there was no way one pathetic little dragon would be able to beat her. 

"So this is where you were hiding," the sorceress said briskly. 

"What do you want, Lina Inverse?" I growled. _Auntie Lina,_ hatchling-me had used to call her, but I couldn't bring myself to do that even for the sake of my cover. Still, it was reassuring to remember that she and Gourry did come through here at least once a decade. Their visit probably wasn't specifically about me. 

"The contents of the Elmekian treasury, and . . . let's see . . . Lei Magnus' personal spellbooks would be nice . . ." She looked up at the sky and tapped a gloved finger against her lower lip before returning her gaze to me. "But from you, all I want is an explanation. What the hell do you think you're doing? Filia's worried sick, and feeling massively guilty about having taught you that stupid mis-firing divination spell." 

I snorted. "Aren't teenagers supposed to be moody and rebellious?" 

"Maybe, but there's more to it than that, isn't there?" 

"Even if there were, it wouldn't be any of your business. Now, go away and leave me in peace." Pointedly, I turned my back on her and began to swing the iron rod through its familiar pattern again. 

"It's my business because Filia is my _friend_." 

Cut, step, thrust . . . 

"Hey, I'm _talking_ to you here!" 

I moved into the second pattern—step left, half-step back, vertical guard, downward cut . . . 

" _Flare Arrow!_ " 

" _Windy Shield!_ " I'd been holding that ready, figuring that she would probably try to get my attention the violent way. The Flare Arrow exploded harmlessly against the layer of rapidly moving air. "I am not your punching bag," I added without turning around. "For the second time, _go away_." 

The growl she voiced at that point was worthy of a dragon, I'll give her that. 

"Hey, Val-kun . . . would you like a sparring partner?" 

I stopped in mid-swing. Of all the things I might have expected one of them to ask, that hadn't been among them. 

"I mean, practicing on your own isn't _useless_ , but you can pick up the habit of always doing the same moves in the same order . . ." Gourry blinked guileless blue eyes at me as I turned to face him. 

The idea of a match with him was intriguing, and he was right about the deficiencies of solo practice, but . . . "You realize that I'm a dragon." 

Gourry smiled. "Yeah, but I don't hold it against you." 

"My _point_ is, I'm several times stronger than you are. You could get hurt." And then Lina would be down on my head like a ton of bricks, which was not a complication I needed just now. 

"Zel's stronger than I am too, and he's never managed to really hurt me," the swordsman said, still smiling. 

Zel would be Zelgadis Greywords, the chimera. I hadn't seen him since the Darkstar business. 

"I also don't have a proper sword," I admitted. 

"I did kind of wonder why you were doing sword drills with that thing, but I figured you wanted the extra weight." Gourry gestured at the rod I still held in my hand. "Anyway, I carry a couple of extras these days, for the times when I don't want to use the Blast Sword—it's overkill a lot of the time. They're both exactly the same, so you can pick one and I'll take the other." 

He removed the two swords from his belt, still in their scabbards, and laid them on the edge of the half-wall rimming the well, then backed away several steps. I waited until he was well clear before approaching to examine the swords. They did seem to be nearly identical—probably army issue from some little kingdom or other. I picked the one that didn't have a deep nick in its edge just below the hilt and stepped back, nodding to Gourry. 

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Lina said. 

"Ah, don't worry. It'll be fine." Gourry was still smiling that untroubled smile As he took off the sword slung across his back and leaned it up against the well before picking up the blade I'd rejected. Suddenly serious, he brought it up to a guard position. I did the same with mine, mirroring him. 

We circled slowly for a few moments, with Lina watching us anxiously. Then I shrugged and began to close the distance. It was only a sparring match, and just circling all afternoon wouldn't even improve my footwork. 

I aimed a cut at Gourry's shoulder, and was completely unsurprised when he blocked it. He thrust, and I slammed my blade into his from the side, sending his sword-point past my hip. I was almost too slow, though, because my body couldn't keep up with my mind. There was a tiny gap before every move. 

If this had been a real fight, my best bet would have been to bind Gourry's sword somehow and give him a full-strength frontal kick in the knee. A shattered kneecap would have slowed even him down. But winning wasn't really what this was about. 

I let him back me in circles around the well. Keeping my distance gave me an extra split-second to react to what he was doing. 

The end came when I had to dodge a thrust quickly and awkwardly by twisting my body and leaning back. I saw the subtle shift in Gourry's stance and knew what the follow-up move would be, but the only way I could be sure of not being hit was to drop down on my ass on the ground while I brought up my sword. The weapons clashed with a metallic ringing sound, and the one Gourry was using broke off where the nick in the blade had been. Sharp metal flew at the well and embedded itself in a gap between two stones, ringing again at a slightly higher pitch. 

Gourry gave the hilt in his hand a sorrowful look, then tossed it aside. "That was fun—you're pretty good, you know." He offered the same hand to help me up. 

I eyed it, then put the sword I still held down on the ground and accepted his help . . . because it was what the hatchling would have done. "Don't give me that garbage," I grumbled. "I'm too slow, and it's going to be almost fifty years before I have my full adult height." 

"Yeah, I noticed you screwed up a couple of times because you overestimated your reach, or couldn't bring your sword around fast enough. You're still really good. By the way, where did you learn that thing . . . ?" He demonstrated in mime. "I don't think I've ever seen that move before." 

"Wait a minute, Gourry—are you saying Val knows sword moves that you don't? And he can keep up with _you_?" 

Gourry scratched the back of his head, while I went cold all over. "Well, yeah . . . but is that really so weird? He's a dragon and all, so he must have had a long time to practice." 

"Two months, jellyfish. Filia wouldn't let him take lessons, and there's no way a self-taught swordsman would be able to fight you on equal terms. I thought you were going easy on him, but you weren't, were you?" 

"You who crosses between sky and earth," I breathed as softly as I could manage, "gently flowing water . . ." If I could freeze them both to the spot, I'd have at least a few minutes to get the hell out of here. 

"But you actually learned that move from your old boss, didn't you . . . Valgaav?" 

"Gather in my hand and give me power!" I snapped. " _Demona Crystal!_ " 

" _Fireball!_ " 

I didn't know how she'd made it work—there hadn't really been time for her to even _think_ the Chaos Words, unless she'd started at the moment when I said "Gather". Which would have been stupid, because there are several spells that use that word. But instead of the two of them being sealed in ice, the spells collided and fizzled. 

Gathering my wits, I snapped, "Dark Mist!" The courtyard was filled with cold black fog that raised goosebumps on my bare upper body and cut visibility to almost nothing. 

"I told you before, Lina Inverse," I said to the fog. "Go away and leave me be." 

"And if we do, what will you do to Filia?" came the ominous voice from the depths of the darkness. 

"Harming her doesn't benefit me at this point, so nothing." It was the truth, but that, I realized with a sick twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach, didn't mean it was believable. 

I"d been intending to take advantage of the darkness to fly out of here, but now that I thought about it, that would probably just start a running battle. Better to settle matters now, if I could. And it seemed as though Lina was more interested in talking than fighting. 

"So just what _do_ you intend to do?" 

"Punish the Lord of Nightmares for sending me back into the world alone." 

"Punish the . . . are you out of your mind?!" 

"It's better than blowing my own head off with a Blast Bomb." I sat down on the edge of the well as a soft breeze began to dissipate the dark. "Having a goal represents my best chance of staying alive. Without one, I have no reason not to give in to the pain." I could see them now: one tall shadow, one short. 

"Don't you dare! Filia would be devastated. After all the trouble she went through—" 

"Do you think I care?" I asked savagely. 

"Well, I do find it pretty remarkable that she's stronger than you. I mean, she lost her clan too, when—" 

"Spare me your uninformed drivel," I interrupted again. "Nearly a hundred juveniles of her clan, and a few adults who were left behind as caretakers, survived to be taken in by other goldens. That's a far cry from being the last of her species." The fog was much thinner now. 

"She's still managed to pick up the pieces and build a new life for herself," Lina said, hands on hips. "And you haven't even managed that much, have you?" 

"From uninformed to self-righteous. I did rebuild my life once, only to have everything torn from me again. I see no reason why I should repeat the exercise." 

She took another breath. I could see she wasn't going to shut up. 

"Dragons mate for life," I said, and she jerked, blinking at the sudden change of subject. "You were willing to risk the entire world to save the one you love, Lina Inverse. I wasn't given that chance when my mate was torn from me. Even Hellmaster couldn't truly return life to the dead, and since he was responsible in this case, I doubt he'd heed a prayer from me even if he were still there to listen. There's an empty place in my mind that will never be full again except in my dreams, and it hurts more than a human like you can possibly imagine. Do you think one ignorant golden dragon's distorted love is enough to compensate for _that_?" 

I was watching for Gourry's sword. I was listening for spells. 

I wasn't watching for punches in the face from a pint-sized sorceress. She had a wicked uppercut that toppled me all the way backward. Which wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't been sitting on the edge of a well. 

I was so startled by that that I just let myself fall, the words, "Oh, get over yourself! I swear, you're more self-absorbed than Zelg—" rushing past me. Then I had water in my ears, making it impossible to hear the rest. 

You can't cast a spell when your mouth's full of water, and my power slipped and slid in my grasp, unwilling to be used for a teleport. Of course, it had been centuries since I'd last performed a teleport as a full dragon, so my power probably revolted because I instinctively tried to use it according to a Mazoku pattern. 

There were several feet of sludge at the bottom of the well, a mixture of mud and decaying who-knew-what, and I hit it headfirst and hard enough to sink right in. It was, I reflected, an embarrassing way to die, but at least when it was over, I wouldn't _hurt_ anymore. The ache inside me would just go away. So would the pain in my ankles . . . 

What the hell?! 

I was being pulled up and out of the sludge. By my ankles. Only when I was dumped, gasping, on the ground and could knuckle the filth out of my eyes did I understand that Lina Inverse had lassoed my feet with Gourry's swordbelt and towed me up out of the well using a Levitation spell. 

"He looks half-dead," Gourry observed sagely, leaning over me while holding his pants up with one hand. "You know, Lina, you really shouldn't be so hard on him." 

"I feel half-dead," I croaked, and spat out more sludge. "And I still don't know whether surviving what just happened is more embarrassing than dying from it or not." _At least if I were dead, I wouldn't know . . ._ but saying that would probably just get me another punch. 

"Yeah, well, it really isn't safe arguing with Lina," Gourry said, in the kind of tone of voice that made it sound like he was conveying some rare wisdom. "She hits _hard_." 

I rolled my eyes and sat up, discovering in the process that I was covered with greenish-brown goo from the top of my head down to around armpit level. " _Aqua Create,_ " I cast. The water was icy cold, but the stuff from the well would be muddy for hours, if not days, before it settled again, and I wasn't going to walk around covered with nameless sludge. 

It was only after I got the worst of the filth off that I discovered I had a fish skeleton entangled in my hair. Really, thoroughly entangled. I picked at it for a few moments, then gave up, sprouted a talon from one fingertip, and use it to shear my hair off just below the level of my earlobes. I'd been meaning to do that anyway. Long hair was hot and messy and it annoyed me to waste my time messing with it. Unlike Gaav-sama, I couldn't cheat and use my power to take out the tangles. I arranged the sliced-off mass neatly on top of the well's stone half-wall, making a little nest out of it for the fish skeleton. Maybe it would confuse the next person to come along, whoever they turned out to be. 

"Um . . ." Lina Inverse said, eyeing the result. 

"Just doing my part to spread chaos and confusion through the universe," I said. "Let's go." 

"Okay," Gourry said agreeably. "Um . . . where are we going?" 

"Back to Filia's. I need a real bath, and now that you two know what's going on, Filia is going to hear about it one way or the other, so it's probably better if I tell her myself. Plus, just _maybe_ , if I model the _correct_ behaviour for dealing with a large secret that's going to hurt the recipient no matter when and how they hear about it, she'll learn something," I growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never thought Gourry was quite as dumb as he looks—if he were, he'd become a black hole and cause the universe to implode around him. Of course, the series makes him look _very_ dumb. ^_^;;;;
> 
> Lina was unexpectedly fun to write here. _Of course_ she'd punch the guy who just about destroyed the universe if it meant snapping him out of a funk!


	6. Chapter 6

She didn't take it well. Then again, I would have been surprised if she had. I might look younger than her at the moment, but I'd already been an unaging Mazoku chimera for centuries when Filia Ul Copt had been hatched. I knew what I'd been signing up for when I returned to the house, though, so I gritted my teeth and endured the shrieks. 

"How _dare_ you even mention that name in front of my Val, Lina Inverse? He has a good life here! I thought you understood that! How could you just ruin it!" 

When she looked like she was about to pull her mace, I had to step in, though. Not that Lina was unable to defend herself, but if they did get into a serious fight, it would be murder on the furniture, and I would be living here for at least a little while longer. 

I caught Filia's wrist as she reached toward the hem of her skirt. "Sit down, Missy," I said firmly. "Hitting someone won't change anything." 

"Says the guy who nearly blew me up the first time we met," Lina muttered. 

"Which wouldn't have changed anything," I pointed out. "Not anything important, anyway. Gaav-sama would still have been dead, and I would still have been trying to take it out on the entire world." 

Lina snorted, but said nothing more. Filia, on the other hand, had gone white. She also collapsed into a chair, with her tail dangling through the open space under the arm rest. At least that meant I could let go of her wrist. 

"Was it . . . something I did?" she asked the air. 

I shook my head. "I've been dreaming bits of the past ever since I hatched again. Eventually, I would have realized that they weren't just dreams. I did lie to you though." Get it all out, and maybe they'd leave me in peace. "It appears that if someone already mated casts that silly little love-cantrip of yours, they see their last meeting with their mate. In my case, that was right before his death." 

" _His?_ " Filia shrilled. "But the laws don't permit—" 

"Mazoku don't give a flying fuck about Ceiphied's laws . . . and in any case, my clan always had a rather pragmatic attitude toward those kinds of relationships. There were never many ancient dragons, and we always had about four males for every three females." Just in case she still didn't get it, I added, "Gaav-sama was my mate, and I . . . loved . . . him more than anyone else I've ever known." 

Filia fainted. Her teacup fell from her hands, bounced once on the table, spraying tea everywhere, then rolled off the edge, landed on the floor, and shattered. 

I rolled my eyes. "Honestly, after everything that's happened between me and her people, _that's_ what sends her over the edge?" 

Gourry shook her gently. "Filia? Hey . . . Uh-oh, I think you broke her." 

"She'll wake up eventually." The teacup was going to be a problem, though. The last time she'd broken one from that set, she'd mourned it like a dead hatchling. I sighed and wracked my brains. How did that spell go again? It was technically a blend of white and astral magic, not holy, so I should be able to cast it even if the Dragon Gods wouldn't give me the time of day. _Time that . . . time that . . ._ Oh, right. "Time that flows, part for a moment to aid us," I muttered, in the obsolete dragon dialect in which I'd learned my very first spells, as a true hatchling coiled on a cavern floor absorbing lessons from the clan elders. "Let the past be called back— _Restorat!_ " 

The pieces of the teacup wobbled and pulled themselves together, then jumped from the floor to the table. I caught the little porcelain vessel before it could fall from Filia's lax grip again, and set it down gently. Something was niggling at the back of my mind. Time . . . what was it about time? There was something . . . just out of reach . . . 

"Was that a time-reversal spell?" a certain red-haired sorceress asked excitedly, interrupting my thoughts. 

I nodded. "It takes a lot more power than it looks like it does, even for something so small. Filia treats those damned teacups as though they were her unhatched eggs, or I wouldn't have wasted the energy." 

"Figures. The only human I've ever seen cast one was Rezo. I don't suppose you could teach me yours?" 

I raised my eyebrows. "How fluent are you in Shinma-War-Era dragon dialects?" 

She blinked, then scowled. "I knew there was a catch. Some general pointers, then? So I can try to work it out on my own? If Rezo ever wrote his down, the notes were probably destroyed when we blew up his lab in Sairaag," she added, as though I was supposed to care. 

Why not? It might make that niggling little thought come clear. "What do you know about the nature of time?" 

"It's one of the axes around which the physical plane is constructed," she said promptly. 

"Axe-ease? Are those better for cutting wood than ordinary axes, or something?" 

Lina elbowed her partner in the ribs. "Shut up, jellyfish—this is way above your head." 

"Oh, okay." 

"And the other axes?" I prompted. 

"Are dimensions in space." 

I nodded. "A time-reversal spell isn't that much different in some senses from a spell like Unlock or Ray Wing, which cause things to move along the three spatial axes. It's just that everything everywhere is in constant motion along the time axis, which means you have to push _hard_ to make something move against the flow. And if you screw up, you generally end up pushing along a diagonal, which can cause the object you're operating on to end up somewhere else in space. Like embedded in a wall. Or, if it's a complicated object, you can end up shifting some parts and not others. We were always told never to use that spell on a living being." 

"Hmm. So teleportation spells—and I've never met a human other than Rezo who could cast one of those, either—work by pushing things hard along the space axes?" 

"No, they use a different kind of operation. It's sort of like folding a piece of cloth and pushing a needle through it—if you can only travel on the surface of the cloth, you need to cover a lot more distance to get from where the needle goes in to where it comes out than you do if you follow the path of the needle itself. That's why the Mazoku call the technique 'folding space'—it's different from just pulling back into the astral and taking advantage of the fact that the fundamental axes on that plane are different." The niggle was stronger now. Folding space . . . but technically, the fabric of space and time were one, so . . . folding time? Fold time . . . and pierce it . . . 

"Have you ever," I said slowly, "heard of an actual time travel spell? Something that could make things disappear from the present and end up . . . somewhen else?" 

Lina's eyebrows rose. "I had one cast on me once, actually. By an elf. That was a really long time ago, though—before I met Gourry, even—and I have no idea how it worked. It sent me back into the past about a hundred years, temporarily." A pause, then, "I don't think it's the best way for you to have a reunion with your boyfriend, though. I mean, wouldn't he think you were an impostor?" 

"If Gaav-sama were the one to kill me, I could die content. And if I submit unconditionally, there might be a chance." It wasn't a lie, but it didn't reflect my true intentions, either. 

If the fabric of time could be pierced to send something from the present into the past, it could equally be used to draw something from the past into the present. 

I could have him _back_. 

The thought caused a weird sensation to fill me, like warm breath momentarily tickling the vulnerable back of my neck. _I understand now . . . Mother._ One dragon might not be all that important, but one _Dark Lord_ might be enough to make Her sit up and take notice. And I was the only one with both the power and the desire to save him. 

I couldn't tell Lina Inverse that, of course. I couldn't tell _anyone_ , because anyone who found out would try to stop me. No mortal except me was likely to want Gaav-sama back, and the Mazoku liked him even less. If I wanted to protect him, I would have to stay silent. 

"You really do love him, don't you?" the sorceress said. "Gaav, I mean." 

"Is that so difficult to believe?" I asked. 

"Well, yes. I mean, okay, so we weren't on the best of terms. He still didn't strike me as the lovable type. More the smite-everything-that-comes-into-range type, if you know what I mean." 

"Then you fell for it," I said with a smirk. 

She blinked. "'It'?" 

"His act. He liked to make people think he wasn't interested in anything but fighting. It made him easy to underestimate. Do you think he would have survived a thousand years with all the other Mazoku after his ass if he'd been stupid?" Seeing that her expression was still dubious, I added, "Let me put it another way. You used the Clair Bible, didn't you? The real one, I mean. What would you say about the quality of thought Ragradia possessed?" 

"Deep," Lina said instantly. "Complicated. There was so _much_ in there . . ." 

So that, I thought, was what awe looked like on her face. 

"Gaav-sama was of an age with Ragradia, and equally powerful. _And_ he was made to oppose her and the other Dragon Gods. He couldn't have _afforded_ to be stupider than they were." 

Several more blinks. "I think you just broke my brain," she said slowly. "But I can understand why you might want to get him back if you put it in those terms. I'd certainly give a lot to have a Clair Bible-equivalent at my fingertips." 

"It's going to take a while to figure out the spells I need, anyway." I snorted as something occurred to me. "I guess I'm going to need that writ from the Sorcerer's Guild examiner after all. I don't know how much their research library can help, but it has to be better than what I could scrape together myself in a reasonable amount of time." 

"They charge through the nose for access," Lina warned me. "Even if you're a full Guild member with a colour title and everything." 

I smirked. "You would know, wouldn't you? _Lina the Pink_." 

"Why you . . . _Flare Arrow!_ " 

" _Freeze Arrow!_ " It used less energy than Windy Shield. The two spells collided in midair and annihilated each other in a puff of steam. 

" _No one_ is supposed to know that they stuck me with . . . with . . . _that colour_ ," Lina ranted. 

"I think you would look quite fetching in a long pink robe," I said. "And weren't you wearing pink when I first met you?" 

"That was _crimson_ , you—" She blinked several times. "Are you _teasing_ me?" 

_I'm distracting you._ I didn't want her to think too much about time travel spells, if I could help it. She was sharp, and she might figure me out. "Maybe." 

Her eyes flashed. "Well, then, you're fair game, Mister! _Fireball!_ " 

" _Freeze Brid!_ " Again, the two spells collided and took each other out. I was starting to feel cold, though. Dragons are creatures of air and fire, and I'd been casting a lot more water shamanism than I would have preferred over the past little while. 

" _Aagh! Not in the house!_ " Jillas half-ran into the kitchen and almost fell on his face when his cane slipped. Gourry caught him and steadied him. "Val-dono, you at least should know better!" 

"Jillas, after nearly a century of association, you should at least be able to get my name right." 

The fox's remaining eye went wide. " _V-valgaav-sama?!_ " 

I offered him a restrained nod, but he didn't wait for it. Instead, he hugged me and started to cry. I ruffled his ears. "Was there a reason you came in here, other than stopping me from keeping our guests from burning the house down?" 

" _Hey!_ " Lina snapped. "You're the one who started it!" 

I ignored that. "Jillas?" 

"The ladies wanted t'know if they could have their kitchen back soon," Jillas said, still clinging to me and crying. 

"It's all theirs once Filia wakes up," I said. "Right now, I have a couple of things I need to do." 

There was no Sorcerer's Guild branch in Mossport, and even if there had been I doubted its library would have been much good. I needed to go north. Lina suggested the rebuilt city of Sairaag. That was a good couple of months' travel, and I needed some basic supplies, food and clothes and a couple of blankets. And a weapon. 

Mossport was big enough to have three dedicated weaponsmiths, but only one of them was any good. Gourry went with me, having, as he said, a professional interest. Plus, he needed a sword to replace his broken "spare", which had snapped off much too close to the hilt to be repaired. 

_Felwrassen and Sons_ , said the sign over the door, with a picture of a blade and an anvil. There were, I knew, three sons, and the smithy and attached shop had been here for well over a century. 

A bell tinkled as we stepped inside. "Hello, and welcome to— _Val?_ " Kel had the oddest expression on his face as he looked up from the homework spread on the counter. "You're okay!" 

I grimaced, but I'd known this was inevitable. _Talk like a hatchling,_ I reminded myself "There was supposed to be something wrong with me?" 

"Well, when you stopped showing up for school, and no one at your place would explain why, I figured there had to be." 

I waved his concern away. "A spell misfired on me and I got hit with Taisser's Effect for a while. You can guess how much the teachers would have liked that. It's worn off now." 

Spellcasting mistakes usually just involved something blowing up, but from time to time they could have strange results. Taisser's Effect, named for a mage who had studied it centuries ago, caused the unfortunate caster's movements to be echoed by sourceless music. Most people would never have heard of it, but Kel had read every book on magic he could get his hands on. 

Kel laughed. "Yeah, I can just imagine. Who's . . . ?" He gestured at Gourry, who was systematically going through swords of about the same size and heft as the one we'd accidentally destroyed. 

"A family friend. Gourry Gabriev." 

"Gabriev . . . wait a minute . . . the _Swordsman of Light_? Lina Inverse's friend? _That_ Gabriev?" 

I nodded. "He doesn't have that sword anymore, though. He gave it away years ago. It's kind of a long story. And I'll bet you anything he's forgotten most of it," I added with a smirk. I didn't quite dare tell Kel that Lina Inverse was in town too, though. If I did, he'd probably do something really embarrassing. 

"I've gotta get his autograph!" Kel started to rummage around under the counter, looking for paper, no doubt, and I drifted away toward the rack where his father kept the heaviest swords that came from his forge. Not that they were all that heavy. Kel's father Felwrassen was a half-elf, after all, and he made his stock with elves and humans in mind. Massive weapons like Gaav-sama's greatsword tended to be used by half-trolls or the larger beastmen, very few of whom lived in Mossport. 

I tested a series of broadswords, each with a blade length of about three feet. The hilts were more variable than the blades—one- or two-handed, with different types of guards. Gaav-sama had favoured a full bell guard, but that was an unusual choice, especially for a heavier sword. There were none among Felwrassen's ready-made weapons. 

In the end, I picked a bastard sword with a plain crosspiece, on the grounds that it offered maximum versatility. It also had a nice balance. 

"Val, you're . . ." 

"Hmm?" I'd half-forgotten where I was, and that there were two other people in the room with me. I'd allowed myself to get lost in memory. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ I chastised myself. _Somebody could have slipped a knife between your ribs there, and you wouldn't even have noticed until you'd fallen over dead!_

"Are you really taking that?" Kel asked, gesturing at the sword in my hand. 

"Is there something wrong with it?" I asked. 

"Well, no, but . . . I thought you Weren't Allowed to take the fencing courses at school, never mind anything else." 

"Because I might have hurt the other students." It was a useful excuse, anyway. The truth was that Filia just hadn't wanted me to learn how to fight. The little fool. 

My clan had died of ignorance like that. 

"I broke my other sword sparring with him," Gourry said, coming up behind Kel. "He needs more practice, but he's really good. Honest!" 

Kel blinked, looking back and forth between Gourry and me. "You could have told me," he grumbled. "I thought we were supposed to be best friends!" 

"That's part of the reason I came here today, when I knew you would be here, instead of waiting for tomorrow morning." _Make this good . . ._ "Kel, I'm leaving Mossport. Probably the day after tomorrow. And I'm not coming back." 

"You're . . . leaving? But . . ." 

"Filia agreed to let me take the scholarship the Sorcerer's Guild offered me, so I'm going to one of the larger branches, up north inside the old Barrier." 

Kel looked like I'd slapped him. Then he seemed to get an idea, and squared his shoulders. "Great mages are supposed to have servants and stuff, right? I could work for you. Or something. And maybe find a way to . . ." His voice trailed off again as he looked down at his hands. 

"I'm just going to be a student. The Guild will probably feed me and give me a bed in the corner of someone's workroom, but I doubt I'll have enough money to even think about servants. I may not even be able to buy myself a skewer of spiced chicken livers at the next midsummer festival. As for the other, Kel, you know there's no way to increase the magical capacity you were born with. Unless you want to become a chimera." 

"I'm starting to think that might be the better choice," Kel muttered. Then he forced a smile. "Maybe I'll look you up in, oh, twenty years or so? By then you should be an established sorcerer with a big mansion and a hundred servants." 

My turn to force a smile, although I had a better grasp than he did on how to make it look natural. "I'll have them throw the ragged vagabond out." More likely, I would have vanished back into my real life, as Gaav-sama's right hand. 

Kel snorted. "Yeah. I'll bet. Just . . . take care of yourself, okay?" 

"I intend to. Now, are you going to sell me this sword?" 

I doubted he would make good on his suggestion that he might follow me. At least this conversation should stop him from doing something stupid like coming after me right away. 

Where I expected to go, he was too innocent to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here endeth Part 1, more or less.
> 
> "Lina the Pink" comes from the novel canon, I think. And she probably Fireballed whoever suggested that colour to a fine crisp. ;)
> 
> Val calls Filia "ojousan" (possibly "ojousama", but that seems a little out of character for him) a couple of times in Try. I can't remember exactly how the official translation renders it, but "Missy" is close enough.


	7. Chapter 7

**(Six years later)**

" _Fireball fireball fireball!_ " I snapped, because the swamp vegetation was too wet to burn easily. 

Flames roared, surged, then guttered out, leaving behind ashes spread over a hummock of dirt. 

I swore tiredly and kicked at a small cypress stump, which promptly disintegrated into charcoal. The stupid temple wasn't here, either. And the sun was getting low, splashing pink and orange over the horizon. 

I was going to have to rethink my search strategy, I realized as I launched into the air, using a touch of Levitation to get myself up to a level where my wings could comfortably catch the wind. The temple was there _somewhere_ , in an area of about four square miles of swamp, but its builders hadn't wanted it to be found. The map I'd dug out of the Sorcerers' Guild library said something about an entrance, and gave a bunch of stupid cryptic instructions for finding it, but I'd figured I could bypass those and locate the building from the air. So far my luck had been all bad, though. Maybe they'd buried it, or it had sunk in the years since the Kouma War. 

I found the spot where I'd left my baggage, landed, and drew my wings in, returning myself to fully human form—I'd considered flying around in my real body, but this area did have a human population and something as big as a dragon wouldn't be able to not draw attention. 

I'd left my robes neatly hung on a branch, and pulled them on with a grimace. Even with the skirts slit up the sides, the damned things were awkward. I didn't know how the other Guild mages managed. But right now, I wanted the respect the damned things commanded among humans. 

I pulled a comb out of an astral pocket and ran it through my hair so that I would look a little less disheveled, although given the way the stuff stood up on end when it was less than six inches long it's possible that no one but me would have been able to tell the difference. Then I set off along the path leading to the nearest village, still tired, grumpy, and irritable. 

The village had what looked like a respectable inn, which was why I'd chosen to base myself on this side of the swamp. Although I really wondered who had chosen to name the place _The Goosedown Pillow_. Humans could be so weird sometimes. 

When I opened the door, a blast of light and noise hit me in the face. The common room was well-lit and full of people. Half the village must eat their meals here. 

I stepped inside and it instantly got a lot quieter as everyone turned to look at me. All the tables had at least one occupant. Which meant that if I wanted to eat now, I was going to have to share with someone. Or I could wait until later . . . I scowled as the very thought made my stomach rumble. I'd been doing a lot of flying today, and that burnt energy at an unbelievable rate. 

I was halfway across the room, headed for the bar at the far end, when someone grabbed my robes and yanked hard. I was so startled that I overbalanced and toppled over . . . into someone's lap?! 

"Hey, pretty girl," a deep voice crooned. Thick arms wound around me, and I got a faceful of beer breath as their owner leaned in. _Half-troll,_ I thought, seeing the tusks and bluish skin. Well, good. That made things easier. 

I jammed my thumb into a pressure point in the bastard's shoulder just as someone else at the table said, "Wait, Ruji, that isn't—!" The half-troll's grip loosened, and I wriggled free. Then, once I was on my own two feet again, I put my hand on the back of the bastard's head and slammed his face into the table. 

"Next time you touch me, you eat a fireball," I growled at him. "Got it?" 

"Yuh," the half-troll mumbled to the wood. 

"Sorry about that, Sorcerer-sama," one of the other men at the table said. This one looked purely human, even if he was almost as broad through the shoulders and chest as his half-troll friend. He had short-cropped auburn hair, and a long, thick beard that he wore in a double plait. "Ruji isn't really a bad guy, but I was dumb enough to let him order the local brandy. Let me buy you a drink to make up for it. I'm Sorrel, by the way." 

I scowled, but offered, "Val the Gold." 

"Foltig," said a man with a shaved head and a scar along the side of his neck that ran up to nick his earlobe. "Let me get you a chair. Oh, and this dumbass is my cousin Erig." He tapped the balding head of the man who had been sitting beside him, and dodged the return punch. The two did look alike. 

The others at the table—one human man, one tough-looking human woman, and a male werewolf—introduced themselves, but I didn't retain the names. All of them had weapons and most wore armour of some sort, and except for Ruji they were just a little too polite for bandits, so I figured they had to be mercenaries. 

"Where's Hen-chan?" Erig asked as the introductions died down. 

"Went up to his room to study spells, or whatever it is that mages do when they're just starting out," Foltig said, returning with my chair. "Here you are, Val." 

I nodded to him and sat. There was half a round loaf of dark bread and a platter of cheese on the table, and I helped myself. 

"I guess it's true that mages are always hungry," Erig said. 

"Shut up, you idiot." Foltig elbowed his cousin in the ribs. 

"Spellcasting burns a lot of energy," I said neutrally. An idea was forming in my head, but I needed to know a bit more before I could put it into action. "What are you fellows doing here? This area's a bit off the beaten path." 

Sorrel grimaced. "It's no secret, I guess—our troop was hired to escort Lord Rolston and his blushing bride home to their castle. Which is the ugliest, most dilapidated building you can imagine." 

"Stupid skinflint's trying to screw us out of our pay," Erig muttered into his drink. Foltig elbowed him again. "What? Everyone knows that too, or will soon if he doesn't cough it up." 

"And why are you here, Val?" Sorrel asked. "As you said, this is a bit off the beaten track—I can't imagine what a Guild sorcerer would be doing here." 

I sighed. "There's a temple in the swamp that I'm trying to find. Unfortunately, the only map I have is less useful than a dead donkey. At least I could eat the donkey." 

That got a round of chuckles. I was starting to feel almost relaxed here. Gaav-sama had kept company with people like these from time to time, which meant that I had too. They were far more straightforward than the Guildsmen I'd been dealing with for the past several years, anyway. 

"Here's your drink, sir." A barmaid set a mug of beer down by my elbow. "Would you like some food to go with it? There's the stew, of course, and we have some fine spit-roasted gamehens . . . or the frogleg platter, if you'd prefer . . ." 

"Get me a bowl of the stew and one of the gamehens," I said, showing her a silver piece. "I'll skip on the frog's legs." 

"Wise decision," Sorrel said. "I mean, not that they're bad if you don't know what they are, but I can never help thinking about where they came from." He wrinkled his nose. 

"They make him feel jumpy," Erig put in, and crowed with laughter at his own joke. Foltig rolled his eyes. So did the werewolf at the far end of the table. 

"Spare me," I said, and took a sip of the beer. Normally I preferred wine, but this was quite good. Gaav-sama would have liked it a lot. 

I'd gotten used to the stab of inward pain whenever I thought about him. Almost. 

I was halfway through my meal when the door to the inn opened again, and a tall, one-eyed human man with a longsword at his hip walked in, followed by a pig-man who made me do a double-take, because his bottle-green velvet jacket and sharp-creased trousers did not at all go with the businesslike pair of shortswords he was wearing. 

They both came straight over to our table and stopped beside it. The human wore a heavily embroidered eyepatch that I recognized as a white magic prosthetic, and leather armour over a dull green shirt and trousers. His hair was dark, going grey at the temples, and he had a pointed little beard. And a deep voice, I discovered as he spoke up. 

"Who's this?" He gestured at me with his left hand while the right hovered near his sword. 

"His name's Val the Gold," Sorrel said. "Ruji mistook him for a girl and tried to feel him up. I figured the least we could do in return was give him a place to sit and buy him a beer." 

"Guild mage?" 

I shrugged. "It's easier than working for a living." 

"Huh. I'm Konalt, the captain of this band of slackers." 

"Daveed, quartermaster and accountant," added the pig-man with a nod. 

"Did you manage to get the money?" Sorrel asked. 

Konalt grimaced. The hard-faced woman whose name I didn't remember offered her chair to him, and he sat down, while she went with Daveed to scavenge more seating from the other tables. "Yes, but I had to take the hit for the broken carriage." 

Erig looked indignant. "But that—" 

"It doesn't matter than it wasn't our fault," Foltig interrupted him. 

"It was a power-play," Daveed added. "Rolston is an ass." The pig-man wrinkled his snout. 

_Sounds like a real charmer,_ I thought, and tore the remaining drumstick off the game hen. The cook had rubbed it with herbs before putting it on the spit, and it had a nice, crackly, flavourful brown skin on it. 

"I've already sent a letter to the three nearest hiring halls warning that he tries to weasel out of his contracts," Konalt said. "That's what took us so long. That, and getting his lordship to stop babbling." 

"I'd pity his wife if I didn't know they deserved each other," Sorrel said. "What next?" 

"I don't know. It isn't like there are many people around here who can afford to pay for our services. We'll probably have to go back to the capital, or at least to the nearest trade road." 

"Do you usually hire out only as guards?" I asked. 

"Guards, monster slayers, bounty and bandit hunters. Anything we can get, so long as the reward is large enough," Sorrel said with a grin. His front teeth were crooked. 

"How about swamp exploration?" I said, trying to sound casual. 

"You mean, you want us to help you look for your temple?" 

Konalt raised his eyebrows. "I take it you discussed some of this before we got back here." 

"Just a second." I ate the last of my stew, set the bowl aside, and used the empty space on the table to lay the map out beside the skeleton of the game hen. "The swamp was a bit smaller when this was made. I've been able to figure out some of the landmarks, but as far as I can tell nothing is to scale, and I haven't been able to spot the temple from the air. Which means I've got about four square miles of mangrove-cypress-quicksand crap to search. The locals are no help at all—apparently they think the place is haunted or cursed, although I can't find any sign of it, and I ran a dozen detection spells before setting foot in there. I suspect it's really a folk-memory of the temple itself." 

"What language is that?" Sorrel asked, frowning at the map. 

"Elvish," Konalt replied before I could. "I can't read it, but I recognize it. So this was an elf temple?" 

I shrugged. "As far as I know. It's been abandoned since just after the Kouma War, though." 

"You don't strike me as a treasure hunter," Konalt said. His pied gaze might have been unnerving if I hadn't spent so many years living and working among Mazoku. "And I have to admit that the idea of a haunted elvish temple does not make me very happy . . . or inclined to risk my men. What exactly are you trying to do?" 

"It's complicated," I said, which was true enough. "I need the idol off the altar. I'm trying to break a curse." 

"And you couldn't just walk into the nearest shrine to whichever Dragon God you need and ask the priest there for a loan?" 

I raised my eyebrows. "Did I say it was a temple to one of the Dragons Gods? It was built by one of the Mazoku-worshipping cults. The curse needs the power of all five Retainers of Shabranigdo to break it. I'm not overly thrilled with the idea either, but I am _not_ going to give up on my partner, who's trapped by this thing, or spend the rest of my life with my powers partially bound." I'd worked out the lies in advance, and they came out smoothly. "Getting something from the three living Dark Lords is easy—just summon a minion of theirs and order them to bleed into a jar for ten seconds—and Hellmaster left a surprising amount of junk lying around with bits and pieces of him sealed in it, but Chaos Dragon Gaav was at war with the other Mazoku for a long time before his death." The word tasted bitter. "After he was gone, they systematically killed off his minions and destroyed artefacts relating to him. But this temple was dedicated to him, and it's been sealed since before the infighting started, so there's a good chance there's something left. The altar idol would be ideal, but if it isn't there anymore, I'll take whatever I can get that has a bit of his power sealed into it." Most of which was true, although I really had no idea what _Phibby_ , as Gaav-sama used to call him, might or might not have left lying around. And I didn't give a flying fuck, either. The world was well-rid of the little horror. 

"Just how did you end up with such an odd curse on you?" Konalt said, still frowning. 

I sighed. "We ran into Xellos, the Beastmaster's Priest—a power only one step below the Dark Lords. He masquerades as a human sometimes. And he's an asshole. I think he thought this would be funny." 

Sorrel, at least, had compassion enough to wince. 

"Anyway," I said, trying to drag things back toward the main topic, "I only want whichever item from the temple is the most useful to me. Anything else we find can be divided up. Elven artefacts sell for quite a lot in Zephilia and Seyruun. Hell, if you like you could go back in winter, when the swamp's frozen over, to take out anything heavy. There's likely to be some large statues." 

"Of what?" Foltig muttered. 

"Given who built the temple and who it's dedicated to? Probably a lot of elven warriors killing each other." I shrugged. 

Konalt exchanged glances with Daveed. 

"Plunder or no plunder, we don't come cheap," the pig-man said. 

It cost me three-quarters of what I'd taken off the bandits I'd run into between here and New Sairaag to hire the band of mercenaries for four days, but I figured it would be worth it. Konalt and I shook hands while Ruji snored against the table, and I bought a round for the house before collecting a room key from the innkeeper and heading upstairs. 

The room I'd taken was tiny, with a sloping ceiling, tucked up under the eaves on the third floor. Which was fine. I didn't intend to do more than sleep here. 

As soon as the door was securely shut behind me, I shucked off my robes and dumped them into the small astral pocket I carried along with me. Then I kicked off my boots and laid back on the bed. The top blanket was scratchy wool, and there were a few bits of straw poking through where a seam in the mattress ticking was starting to split, but at least it seemed to be clean. More so than me, really, but it seemed like a waste of time to call for a bath when I was going straight back into the swamp tomorrow. I'd probably get all the water I wanted then. 

I slid my hand into my pocket and brought out a small, round piece of wood. The moonlight spilling in through the window turned the design I'd etched into the surface with my talons black with shadow. 

There was no power in it, and I'd always thought it looked like a squashed bug. But the seal was the one thing I had of him. 

"I'm almost there," I said as I ran my thumb over the curving lines. "Just a few more days, and I should . . . we should . . ." There was the slightest of tremors in my voice, and I closed my hand tightly around the little token. 

Fear was deadly, and I would not show it—hell, I wasn't even sure if I _could_ , I'd been forcing myself not to admit weakness for so very long. But if I failed to pull this off . . . or I succeeded, but he didn't . . . he didn't . . . 

_He's my mate,_ I told myself firmly. He wouldn't just . . . discard me like an old pair of socks. 

I had to believe that, or I was going to go insane. Again.


	8. Chapter 8

"—temple? Seriously?" The voice cracked on the last word. Whoever this guy was, he sounded young. Someone I hadn't met last night, then. 

"That's what he told us," Sorrel said calmly. "He was wearing Guild robes, the fancy silk-and-velvet kind. And he paid in advance. I don't see any reason to doubt him." 

"Thank you for that vote of confidence," I said dryly as I reached the ground floor and stepped into the common room. 

Sorrel was sitting at a table with Konalt, Daveed, Ruji the half-troll (who looked like death warmed over), and a human boy in a brown sorcerer's robe who had to be about the age that I looked—fifteen-ish—complete with a spray of pimples on his forehead. Breakfast was spread out between them. 

All of them were staring at me. 

"I thought you said he was wearing Guild robes," the boy said, sounding accusing. 

I rolled my eyes. "I was flying, mostly, yesterday. Today we're going to be on foot, and all the robes would do is get wet." Instead, I was wearing what I'd had on under the robes: a sleeveless shirt of unbleached linen embroidered with complicated spell-patterns in brown thread, plain trousers, and high boots whose waterproofing spells I'd just checked and renewed. Sweat-stained leather bracers covered my forearms, and the sword I'd bought years ago in Mossport rode at my hip. 

"If I didn't know, you'd look like a junior hire," Sorrel said. "You sure you're a mage? And do you know how to use that sword?" 

I gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Want me to prove it? _Dicleary_ ," I cast, slapping Ruji on the shoulder. After the brief glow of the spell, a little colour seemed to come back to the half-troll's face. 

"That's a lot better," he said in a thick, deep voice. "Um, sorry. About last night, I mean." 

"I already punished you for that, so it's over," I told him, then added to Sorrel, "If you want to test the sword part, we'll have to go outside. I'll get a bad reputation if I start breaking up bars at this hour of the morning." 

The mercenary grinned. "Nah, I'll take your word for it. Sit down, why don't you, and have something to eat. I don't think we introduced you to Hen-chan last night." He waved a hand in the general direction of the young mage. 

"It's _Hendrick_ ," the young mage snapped. Then he stopped dead, looking at me with the oddest expression on his face. "Um . . . Val the Gold . . . right?" 

I nodded. 

"You're really full Guild?" 

"As of six years ago." 

"You mean you passed the exam when you were _ten_?" 

_Shit._ Well, I had little choice but to say something now. "I'm older than I look. I've been stuck with this crappy kid's body since I was cursed." 

Hen-chan licked his lips. "I think it's actually, um, a pretty good body . . ." He blushed, then hid his face in his hands. " . . . can't believe I just said that . . . I didn't mean to make you think . . . oh, hell." 

I'd probably been that stupid during my first adolescence, but I really didn't remember it well enough to be sure. It had been two deaths ago and half a world from here, after all. 

"It isn't what my body is supposed to be," I said firmly, sat down, and gestured the waitress-slash-barmaid over to tell her that I wanted some tea. "So, Hen-chan, you're the regular mage with this group?" 

The boy nodded. 

"What's your best spell?" I might need to know what I could depend on him to do, if something went wrong. 

"Dug Haut," the boy said, blushing again. 

"You're an earth shamanism specialist, then?" 

"Basically, earth and a bit of white magic are all I know. And Elmekia Lance." 

"Hmm. Do you have Bephis Bring and Damu Brass in your repertoire?" 

"Bephis Bring, yes. I've never been able to find a reference for Damu Brass." 

"I'll write it out for you," I said. "Depending on what state the temple's in, we might need it, and earth is the element I'm weakest in." Not to mention that if he was the one breaking down walls and digging tunnels, I'd be able to conserve my energy just in case we needed to fight anything. 

Another blush—was this kid ever going to stop getting red? "Thanks, sir." 

I ate heartily when the food got there, knowing it might be the last good meal I got for a while. 

The swamp was much wetter at ground level than it was from up above the treetops, and it stank to high heaven. Erig and Foltig led the way into it, since they'd apparently grown up in similar territory somewhere in the Outer World. Which made things much faster and safer than they otherwise would have been—I had enough brains to know that a nice, smooth, trackless expanse of (quick)sand was probably too good to be true, but I had no idea how they told the vegetation-covered hummocks that would take our weight from the ones that would sink, so I would have had to test every step I took with a walking stick, or cast Levitation continuously to float along just above the ground. Which would have been a serious pain in the ass. 

The swamp was definitely not monster-free. The plated turtles were too slow on land to be much of a problem, but every so often someone would have a lariat snake drop down on them and try to drag them off into the muck. The snakes had the same vulnerable spot as a dragon, the nerve bundle at the back of the neck, but to get at it you had to get them to stop thrashing first, which made killing them a two-person job. 

There were rarer, nastier creatures too. Creatures that hid. 

"I wonder what this is." Hen-chan had been examining a lumpy green thing hanging from a tree ever since we started our rest break. After looking it at from several angles, he pulled a dead branch from the same tree and raised it toward the . . . thing. 

Erig knocked it out of his hand. "Dumbass, that's a blackwasp nest. Poke it and you're dead . . . except not nicely or quickly. Guy we used to know took three days to go after two of them stung him. Rotted to little bits from the inside out." 

Hen-chan flinched back, but he also got a mulish look on his face. "But Val-san knows Dicleary, right? So it should be okay." 

"Dicleary often doesn't work on rotting poisons," I said, truthfully enough. "The only spell I know that cures those is Radya Purification, and I can't actually cast it." 

"Why not?" 

"Because it's a holy spell, the Dragon Gods hate me, and unlike the Dark Lords they actually _care_ who uses their power." My hand drifted over to my pocket and the disc of wood inside. Some people would count just having such a thing on me as worshipping a Dark Lord. "Anyway, my white magic skills top out at Resurrection, and I'm not good enough with it to regenerate severed limbs or anything like that. So try not to be too impulsive, okay? This isn't a safe place to explore. I'm sure Foltig will be glad to tell us all exactly how not-safe it is. Before we get any deeper in." 

Foltig shrugged. "I haven't been here before either, so I don't know for sure, but I've already seen some arachna webs. Think spiders the size of a large dog that throw silk at you and turn you into a sticky, nasty cocoon if you get too close to them," he added when several people gave him uncomprehending looks. "Then they drag you in and bite you. Their poison kills instantly. Afterwards, they lay eggs in your corpse. I think we're too far north for pestilence toads, thank Ceiphied, and whistling eels aren't much of a problem unless we need to go wading. Alligators, much the same if you don't get within ten feet—they're slow on land, but they can lunge short distances." 

"If it seems necessary, I can probably freeze small bodies of water for long enough to get us across," I said. "Anything else?" 

"Swamp dragons, if there's anywhere the water's deep enough—they're primarily aquatic. If we find any of those, the safest thing to do is stay away." 

"Dragons are outside our job description," Konalt added. "We lost four men taking out a plasma dragon a few years ago. Since then, we've given up bounties rather than tangle with any more of them." 

_Right now, you're working for an ancient dragon who's trying to find a temple to the Chaos Dragon. That's two dragons already._ I would have had to be dumber than Gourry to say it, though. "I just hope there aren't any guarding the temple, then," I said. I was more than confident of my ability to take out a lesser dragon, or even a dozen of them, but doing it without revealing my true nature might be tricky. 

So we slogged onward through the swamp, headed for the area indicated by the map. It took us hours on foot to cross the distance I'd covered in minutes in the air, but we might miss something if I just ferried everyone around without touching down. Finally, sometime around midafternoon, Foltig parted some hanging creepers and jerked back with a surprised expression on his face. 

"Something wrong?" Konalt asked. 

"Only that I didn't think an area this wet could burn like this. Looks like a salamander got at the place, or something." 

"That was probably me, yesterday," I admitted. "I burned off some of the more solid-looking islands, looking for the temple. You're right about this crap not burning, by the way. It took a lot of Fireballs to clear everything." 

"Remind me never to make you mad," Foltig said. 

"Could have told you that last night." Ruji had been bringing up the rear, but since Foltig had stopped, we'd bunched up a bit. "He may not be big, but he's plenty strong." 

"We can set up camp on one of these, then," Foltig said. "Less stuff to worry about. We should pick the most central one, though, if we can." 

"Then we head that way," I said, and pointed. 

The central hummock was larger than the first one we'd found, but humped up much higher, too, in awkward terraces. It made for interesting tent-pitching, and even more interesting times when trying to get from tent to privy trench, as poor Hen-chan discovered. Then again, he should have had the brains not to wear something as encumbering as a robe. It wasn't even a Guild robe, for Ceiphied's sake. 

Anyway, he got a fold of fabric caught between his legs, tripped, and went tumbling downhill to land with a spectacular splash among the reeds. 

"Ten bronze says he ends up with leeches on his ass before he manages to haul himself out," Erig said with a grin. I would have hit him, just on general principles, if it hadn't been obvious that Hen-chan wasn't in any danger—the water was only knee-deep, although there was a layer of foul-smelling muck at the bottom. 

I was as startled as anyone when the young mage yelled up the hill, "Val-san! I think I found something! Come and see!" 

Rather than slide down, I cast Levitation, figuring it was safer that way. "What do you have?" I called as I dropped down at the edge of the water. 

"I'm not sure—I mean, I can't really _see_ it—but it feels like pavement. Fitted blocks, underneath the reeds and the ooze." He was squatting down feeling at it, with his head barely above the water. 

" _Raywing_ ," I cast, and stepped down among the reeds. The water parted around me, and then around Hen-chan as I moved a little closer. When I brought the spell low enough, it pushed the ooze out of the way, too. There really was pavement there, a narrow strip of fitted grey stone concealed by around an inch of muck. "A path. Or a causeway. Hidden on purpose, I'd bet. Since there doesn't seem to be anything at this end, let's have a look at the other one." 

I let Hen-chan climb into the globe with me before I floated us slowly along, pushing the muck out of the way with the spell. It was a good thing I did, because the path zigged, then zagged, and finished up by taking off at an angle of roughly seventy degrees to its original direction. If I'd just headed off in a straight line, we wouldn't have ended up anywhere near the path. 

It ended against the side of what seemed like an ordinary little grove of cedar trees. You had to look closely to see that some of the lower branches had been trained, guided into the shape of a three-lobed opening. The path ended inside, in a wider area engraved with runes. 

"'Present the key and enter'," I read—despite the script, the language was elven again—and felt something in my pocket vibrate just the tiniest amount. "The map says something about that too." I began to nudge the Raywing bubble backwards out of the space. 

"Wait—aren't you going to try to open it?" Hen-chan asked. He'd stayed in the Raywing bubble with me while I'd painstakingly traced the causeway, and I'd let him, since he wasn't bothering me. 

I shook my head. "In the morning. We've all been slogging through the swamp since not long after dawn, and I'd rather be fresh and alert when we enter the temple." I wasn't going to enjoy the wait either, but I knew how to handle it, and I knew it was the best thing to do. "And besides, you're turning blue. We need to get you out of those wet clothes." 

It's difficult to blush when you've got hypothermia, but he tried. "You're worried about me?" 

"Shouldn't I be?" _I intend to use you to break down doors and whatnot once we're inside, so I'd rather you didn't die while I still need you._

"Um," was Hen-chan's intelligent reply, but he also smiled. 

I Raywinged us back over to the camp and just about kicked the young mage into his tent while I explained to the others what we'd found. 

"Almost too easy," Sorrel observed, and there were grunts from several of the others. Konalt said nothing, but he did frown, drumming his fingers on his belt. 

"I think so too," I admitted. "Sometimes things really do go that well, but we're going to need to be on our toes once we get inside. Just in case." 

"That is, if we can figure out what 'the key' is," Hen-chan said, popping back out of his tent. He must not have brought another set of robes with him, because he was wearing a plain shirt and old trousers patched at the knees. I understood now why he preferred the robes, though: they hid how skinny he was. 

Remembering the vibration I'd felt, I dipped my hand into my pocket and touched the only thing inside: the disk of etched wood. "I'm almost certain it wants something with the Chaos Dragon's sigil on it—the elves probably had precast metal tokens, but from the way it reacted when we entered the space, the one I've got will probably do." 

Several sets of eyebrows rose. 

"I would have figured it was dangerous to carry something like that around," Sorrel said. 

I shrugged. "The sigil designs are used in some kinds of black magic, so it isn't a problem just to own something inscribed with one—Seyruun's the only place it's illegal, and even they have an exception for Guild-sanctioned mages. Besides, Gaav-s—" I caught the slip just in time, coughed, then continued on as though nothing had happened. "—The sigil of a dead Dark Lord can't channel any power. Hellmaster's is useless now too, and the spells of both their names. If the lock-spell for the temple is expecting an _active_ sigil, no key will work, and I'm going to have to unwind the lock itself before we can get in." Which was going to involve a lot of time sitting on tree branches in leech-filled swamp water trying to pick patterns out of the astral plane. If I hadn't spent all those years as a Mazoku chimera, with the other plane continually impinging on my awareness, I doubted I'd have any chance of pulling it off. 

"I've never met anyone who could actually do that before," Hen-chan said, giving me an admiring look. He was, I decided, like an overgrown puppy, gawky and eager, with hands that were far too big for him and an unclear understanding of the world in which everyone was supposed to be well-intentioned. What in hell was he doing travelling around with this bunch? 

"Is something going on?" Foltig said, reappearing from wherever he'd been hiding. "There are some great mushrooms around here, you know—best I've seen in years! Time to start supper." 

That sent people hunting for pots and supplies. Rather than stick around while they cooked, I used a Levitation spell to take myself to the nearest intact tree of any size and picked a branch to perch on. 

I might have been almost comfortable with the mercenaries—that was the problem. But the hollow inside me couldn't be filled by mere friendship. I wouldn't be whole until I was again at Gaav-sama's side. 

_It won't be much longer,_ I told myself. _I will get him back. I_ will _._

A flung stone clacked against the trunk of the tree in whose branches I was perched. Another plopped into the water not far from my dangling foot. I looked up and saw Sorrel watching me from the island that held the camp. The bearded man beckoned with an exaggerated motion. 

What did he want with me? 

I Levitated myself back across the water. 

"What?" I asked, dropping to the ash-covered earth beside the mercenary. 

"I wanted to talk to you about Hen-chan." 

I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes. "What about him?" 

Sorrel sighed. "He has the biggest crush on you I've ever seen." Well, that did explain why the kid had been blushing so much. "I hope you're . . . not offended." 

_Why would I . . . Oh._ "No more than I would be if he were a girl. He's much too young and not my type, but I don't have any intention of harming him." After all, what possible good could hurting the boy do me? 

Sorrel looked relieved. "You'll let him down gently, then?" 

"Why do you care?" 

"He's my sister's kid, and I kind of promised her I'd look after him." 

"You might not be doing him any favours." I'd been more mature than Hen-chan when the goldens had first dropped from the sky, it was true, but I'd also been helpless. My family, my entire _culture_ , had conspired to protect me from what I'd needed to know that awful night. 

If I'd been aware then of what Gaav-sama had taught me later about fighting and battle tactics, I might not only have come out unscathed, I might have been able to save some of the others. There was no way to change that now, though. I couldn't even summon them from past to present the same way I hoped to do with Gaav-sama. There was no way to obtain a sample of their power that I could use to draw the rest of their . . . selves . . . in. 

The Lord of Nightmares is very particular about which sections of Her agenda She'll permit to be disrupted. 

"Val . . . hey . . ." 

"Hmm?" 

"You kind of spaced out there." Sorrel was eyeing me nervously. 

"Old memories," I said, and was about to add something else when Erig crested the top of the hill. 

"Supper's ready, you two! Better be there quick if you want some." 

Supper was bacon and sliced mushrooms fried in bacon grease and fresh-ish bread Daveed had added to the supplies just before we'd left town. The pig-man had exchanged his velvet jacket for a more practical breastplate of green-dyed leather, and looked a lot less peculiar mixed in with everyone else than he had back at the inn. 

"Um, I saved these for you, Val-san!" 

I accepted the bowl of mushrooms, but I also sighed. "Hen-chan . . . Hendrick. I think we need to talk." 

He blinked and flushed. "Oh. Um. Sure." 

The young sorcerer sat down beside me with his meal, and I tried to decide where to begin. 

"I'd like to thank you for finding that causeway," I said at last. 

"It was just an accident." 

I shook my head. "Lots of people would just have sworn a bit and gotten out of the water. You noticed that there was something unusual about where you landed. That was good thinking." 

He really was red now. "I just wanted . . . to help with your curse . . ." He looked down at his hands. "The look you get on your face sometimes . . . I guess it must hurt a lot." 

_Perfect._ "What hurts is being separated from my partner. I could deal with the rest if he were here with me. As it is, I've been fighting for almost eighty years to get him back. I miss him a lot, often at the weirdest times. And I have the worst case of blue balls in history, but cheating on him . . . is out of the question. It would be like admitting I'd lost him for good." 

Hen-chan had gone stiff, then white. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a croaking noise. On his second attempt, he managed, "You must love him a lot." 

_Gaav-sama . . ._ "Yes, I do." _Forever and always._

"I . . . I think I'm going back to my tent for a bit. Suddenly, I'm not all that hungry." Hen-chan lurched to his feet. 

I finished my meal, handed my dishes over to Erig, who had cleaning duty, and headed for my own tent, pitched at a little distance from the others. Sorrel nodded to me in passing. Hopefully, he'd be able to pick up the pieces with respect to Hen-chan. 

As I made myself comfortable on my bedroll, I wondered if I'd ever been that young.


	9. Chapter 9

I put the little wooden disk on the narrow pedestal that had risen out of the water when I'd waved the thing over the runes, and the tangle of branches that formed the far wall rippled visibly. It settled again a moment later, but if I concentrated hard enough, I could detect the open pathway even with a dragon's weak astral senses. 

"When you get to the back of the space, close your eyes and step forward," I told the mercenaries. "Keep them shut until you've taken enough steps you can be reasonably sure you're through. Your ears might pop, if the endpoint of this is far enough above or below where we are now. I'll go first, since it's possible the far side is underwater or something." 

It wasn't, though. Just damp. An ordinary stone room with half-overgrown runes on the floor and lichen on the walls. I reached back through the wall I'd just entered by, and beckoned. A few minutes later, everyone was there. 

"There's no etheric lighting," Hen-chan said as he opened his eyes. He sounded surprised. 

"The Chaos Dragon was the Dark Lord of elemental fire. His temples were always lit by true flame. But I doubt we'll find anything here that will still burn," I added. The temple seemed to have been leaking for the past thousand years. _I'll bet we're under the swamp._ That would explain both the need for portals and why I hadn't been able to find this place from the air. 

"Good thing we brought the lanterns, then." Sorrel lit one. Daveed muttered something about the cost of oil. Konalt said nothing, but watched them both. That seemed to be his usual mode: watching, waiting, and giving orders only when absolutely necessary. There was no doubt that he was in charge, but he trusted his followers. 

I wondered if he realized what a luxury that was. 

There was only one exit from the room, so we took it, and found ourselves at one end of a wide passageway. I could hear water running somewhere nearby, but the floor itself wasn't wet, just a little slimy. It took me several moments to notice the unmortared gaps between every third set of paving stones, or the very subtle slant of their surfaces. The elves had built this place with plenty of drainage. The water I could hear running was underneath the stone. 

The real joke was that Gaav-sama would have hated this place. Given the choice between a desert and a swamp, he'd pick the desert every time. Maybe the elves had put their temple here specifically because no one would ever have looked for it in a place like this. After all, Mazoku-worshippers were despised by all intelligent species except orcs and trolls. 

The walls of the corridor bore engraved friezes, and despite the blurring caused by the lichenous growths, it was easy to tell that the same battle was depicted on both sides along its entire length, Mazoku and dragons and elves and primitive humans all clashing violently. I didn't think I'd ever seen so many dead golden dragons, not even outside of the temple they had made into my people's final mausoleum. 

Above and below the frieze on the nearer side, looping elven script identified the battle—Kativan's Hill, during the Shinma War—and went into a long screed about the weakness of the Dragon Gods, the corruption at large in the world, and how everything should just be returned to the chaos from which it had sprung. The Mazoku agenda, in other words. Which both Gaav-sama and the Lord of Nightmares Herself had rejected. I sneered. What irony, if I did manage to find his salvation in this place! 

It wasn't a very long hallway, and it ended at a pair of huge double doors. At one time, I expect the beaten copper had been brightly polished. Now it was scaled over with green, but again the design of the relief was still clear enough: the Chaos Dragon in his full three-headed glory, with his massive taloned hands resting on the body of a dead golden. One head breathed pure destruction out along the wall to my right, one snaked low to menace a robed elven sorcerer, and the third glared out at visitors. The eyes were inset with lapis lazuli that winked brightly under the barrage of illumination from lanterns and Lighting spells. 

And then they flared even brighter, colour shifting from blue to red, and I realized I might have made a mistake. I just hoped it wasn't too serious. 

" _Who comes?_ " The voice that boomed out of nowhere was deep, certainly, but it wasn't Gaav-sama's. Not that anyone else would know the difference. Certainly the builders of the temple would have no way of knowing that he spoke elvish with the same gutteral dragonish accent I had myself, since I'd learned it from him in the first place. 

" _One in his service,_ " I replied, hoping that whatever spell had been cast here wouldn't be defeated by my throaty vowels and back-rolled Rs. 

" _Present your offering,_ " the voice said, and the jaw of the central dragon head in the door relief lowered itself slightly. I was a bit puzzled until I realized that the points of the great lower fangs were needle-sharp. 

I pricked my finger and wiped blood across the copper dragon's narrow tongue, and the eyes flashed one last time and faded. The door was opened by unseen hands, hinges squealing, to admit us to the area beyond. 

This room was huge, with a soaring ceiling—big enough for me to manifest in my true form, so long as I didn't try to spread my wings. Or it would have been, if it hadn't been for the huge heap of slimy brown bones in the middle. Dragon bones. Not _ancient_ dragon bones, or even golden dragon bones, not with those tiny vestigial wings and narrow head, but . . . 

"Marsh dragon," Erig said from behind me. " _Big_ sucker. I wonder why they put him in here?" 

"More to the point, _how_ did they get something that size in here? They must have brought it here as an egg." Foltig answered his own question, then looked around the room again. "Talk about a sucky life!" 

"It was a she," I said. "There are still eggs lying on top of the pelvis. And I don't think she was doing so badly as all that." Pointedly, I bent down and picked up the human skull, sans lower jaw, that was nudging against my foot. Then I tossed it toward the piled dragon bones, wiping my hand against my trouser leg—the texture of the rotting bone had been unpleasant, to say the least. Maybe we weren't the first non-elves to find this place after all. 

The scales on my astral body hackled. Something was watching us. 

"Get back!" I snapped just as the pile of bones began to tremble, and then uncoil into a sinuous shape. It had to have taken one hell of a Necro Vood spell to raise anything of that size. Several elven mages had probably worked together to do it, sealing the magic with blood to make certain it would outlive them. And the command they had most likely given to the marsh dragon skeleton was _kill_. If they'd set the spell as they were pulling out, they wouldn't even have needed to write any exceptions into it. 

The jaws parted and it roared silently as the mercenaries fell back and drew weapons. In the background, I could hear Hen-chan chanting. 

"You who are not of this world, pitiful, twisted creature, by the light of the holiness—damn! That's not it! _Ack!_ " The marsh dragon's head shot out at the young mage. 

" _Astral Break!_ " I shouted, aiming directly at one of the eyeholes of the skull. The spell struck with a blue-white flash, leaving char marks on the bone even though it shouldn't have been able to affect the physical. "Get back into the hallway, Hen-chan! Aim your Elmekia Lance above our heads—I need it to stay distracted if I'm going to cast anything powerful enough to take it out!" Dismembering a skeleton of that size with unenchanted hand weapons was out of the question—we needed magic. And Hen-chan had just flubbed Megido Flare, wasn't strong enough to cast Holy Bless or the Ra Tilt, and was unlikely to even know the several applicable holy spells. 

The young mage knew how to follow orders at least. He obeyed, creating a strobing flicker of light above our heads. Meanwhile, the older mercenaries darted in and out, aiming quick blows at the dragon's legs and sides. I was surprised they'd stayed, given what Konalt had said about dragons. Ruji, grim and sweating, actually managed to splinter the bones in thing's left forearm with his huge axe, and the skeletal dragon reared back and roared soundlessly at the ceiling. 

"Thou who art not from this world, pitiful, twisted creature . . ." I felt the Chaos Words begin to engage, swirling the energies around me and creating a wind to tug at my hair. "By the light of the purity I possess, I bid thee be gone to the nexus of our two worlds! _Megido Flare!_ " 

A massive circle of light formed underneath the skeletal dragon, and it roared a third time, clawing at its own bones in clear distress. _Sorry, little cousin._ The light flared brighter, and cleared, and . . . 

The fucking marsh dragon was still there. In one piece and looking pissed off, as far as I could tell. 

_Well, isn't that just great._ We were down to last resorts now. I could think of exactly one more thing I could try without risking something dire, like exposing myself as a dragon, burning all the magic I had and leaving myself helpless down here, or blowing up the ceiling and bringing the entire swamp down on our heads. 

I squatted down and put both hands on the floor. "Holy wind which blows gently across the land—" The marsh dragon's tail lashed at me, and I rolled awkwardly away, keeping at least one hand on the slimy flagstones the whole time. "—let all things be filled with your pure breath! _Van Rail!_ " 

Ice crackled along the floor, flowering outward from my hand. Erig got caught in it, the hapless bastard, but so did the dragon. It shook, bones vibrating against the ice, bare lower jaw working in silent distress. 

"Ruji! Get that head off its neck! _Do it now!_ " I spoke that last sentence in the command-voice Gaav-sama had taught me to use, because the half-troll didn't seem to be moving. He jumped like I'd hit him with a Digger Bolt and lunged forward, axe swinging. 

It took him three chops to get the skull off the neck vertebrae, with the marsh dragon on the verge of breaking free the whole time, but in the end, the head rolled, and the skeleton, no longer animate, disintegrated into a flood of rotting bones. 

"Rest in peace," I said quietly. Even if it had just been an animal, about as closely related to greater dragons like me as monkeys are to humans, it had been trapped down here long enough. Gaav-sama wouldn't have approved. _This place is wearing out my irony meter._ "I guess I owe you hazard pay now." 

"Fucking right you do." Sorrel scowled. 

"One thousand gold. I'll divide it up," Konalt said. 

I grimaced. "It might take me a little while to get that much together." Were there any big groups of bandits near here? "I'm surprised you stayed." 

"I got my foot wedged," Daveed admitted with a grimace of his own. "There's a missing stone, and what's underneath the floor isn't much more than semiliquid goop. And now I'm going to need to shell out for a new pair of boots." He wrinkled his snout in disgust and held up a dirty, bare foot. 

"We don't abandon our own," Sorrel added. 

"Um . . . speaking of that, could someone thaw me out?" Erig asked. The lower half of his body was encased in ice, and there were trailing bits up almost as far as his armpits. It was a good thing I'd been focused on the skeleton and pushing the spell in its direction, or he would have been an ice cube. 

I sighed. " _Flare Arrow_." Lances of fire struck the ice, and Erig swore and brushed the half-melted, steaming bits of frozen water off his legs. 

"You nearly burned a hole in my ass!" 

"Serves you right for not dodging that ice spell fast enough," Foltig said. 

"You could at least show a little sympathy, _Folly_." 

"You weren't actually hurt, _Earwig_ , and you aren't _that_ much wetter than the rest of us." 

Which was true enough, since we'd all had to wade to get through the entrance to the temple. 

"If you two are done with the comedy routine, can we move on before I start to grow mold?" asked Daveed plaintively. 

On the far side of the dragon's prison, there was another short hallway, this one lined with statues—mostly elves killing elves, as I'd suggested last night, with a few involving not-to-scale dead golden dragons for variety. It ended in an archway this time, rather than a talking door. There wasn't enough light to get a good look at the room beyond, so I sent my Lighting spell on ahead. 

Red, and the glint of metal and . . . 

"Holy fuck," Erig breathed. 

The statue was about the size of the marsh dragon—not life-sized, in other words, but still very, very big. The three heads on their individual long necks arched above the altar at different sinuous angles. Each scale stood out in individual red-enameled glory, and the eyes were some kind of clear greenish-blue stone, maybe sapphire. The altar below the idol seemed to be of solid gold, although I would have bet it was only plated. 

"I don't think you're going to be hauling that home with you," Sorrel observed. 

"I may not need the whole thing," I said, and walked forward through the arch. 

There was power here, a surprising amount of it when you considered how long this place had been abandoned. It washed over my body like the caress of a familiar hand, and I bit my lip to avoid groaning as my cock jumped to attention in my pants at the tiny hint of Gaav-sama's presence. This, I told myself, was not the time, ignoring the little whisper at the back of my mind that said it seemed like it _never_ was the time. 

I stopped in front of the altar and bowed deeply. Then I turned to face the lowest-hanging of the three heads and opened myself fully to the power in the room. 

It felt like plunging my hand into scalding water, but it was _familiar_ scalding water. I'd lived with unbalanced and opposing power inside my body for centuries. The sensation was as much pleasure as pain. Breathe in, breathe out . . . remember the balance point I'd found in the caves when Xellos attacked me . . . Yes. I had it now. 

I held out my hand and _demanded_ , knowing that nothing in this room would listen to requests or pleas, and felt a massive ripple pass through the dark energies. Under my guidance, most of the energy drew itself together at one point, and then there was a soft click and a fist-sized sapphire fell from one of the idol's heads into my hand. 

I cradled it for a long moment, watching glints of red fire flicker across its surface and feeling the ripples of power inside that caused them. _Gaav-sama . . ._ His consciousness wasn't here, of course, but I could still feel him touching me . . . I shivered and forced myself to put the sapphire in a pouch, then hung the pouch on a thong around my neck. 

"That's it," I told the mercenaries, turning back to face them. "If you see anything you want to make off with, like the other eyes from the idol, now would be a good time." 

No one moved. They just stared at me like I'd grown two extra heads. 

"Or we can just leave," I added. 

Erig swallowed visibly and said, "Yeah, I think that might be a good idea."


	10. Chapter 10

I redrew the final line again, really grinding the chalk into the cracks, and sighed, sitting back on my heels. I was starting to think that I should have melted the flagstones down and let them cool into a nice smooth surface before starting this, but I was only renting this barn. Hell, it was embarrassing to be casting this in an empty barn at all, but I'd needed something fireproof, at a good distance from any other buildings, and with a dragon-sized interior just in case, and this place, with its sturdy stone walls and slate-shingled roof, was the first one I'd found that fulfilled all those conditions. Waiting any longer to cast the spell was out of the question when I'd already been waiting for years. There were limits on my self-discipline. 

Just a little longer, and I wouldn't be alone anymore. Either he and I would be together again, or I'd know it was impossible . . . and if that turned out to be the case, well, I knew that the sword I'd propped in the corner was sharp. Let the Golden One try to come up with some excuse to bring me back _this_ time. I certainly wasn't going to make it easy for Her. Not when I was so cold and tired and empty and longing for him with every fiber of my being. 

I checked the magic circle for the third time. This time, the lines looked like they were all properly connected together. Just as well, given that I was almost out of chalk. The flagstones had worn it down until there was nothing left. 

The sapphire in the very center of the circle winked redly at me in the light of the oil lamp I'd hung from the far wall. I checked the oil reservoir, the medical supplies I'd selected, the bedroll I'd laid out near at hand because we were both likely to be exhausted when this was over. 

I'd left the top half of the door open—even that was slate, hung on a metal frame—for ventilation, and to keep an eye on the time. The optimum time for casting the spell was dawn, a boundary time symbolic of the movement from the old to the new. The moon, not quite full, was high overhead. It would set about half an hour before sunrise, meaning that I had quite some time to wait. 

I sat down on the carefully arranged blankets. Squirmed. Stood up again. If I tried to stay still, I was probably going to go insane. So, then. Outside. 

I took the sword with me, and the blade glittered in the moonlight as I began a slow dance, one familiar pattern after another. Remembering the touch of his hands correcting my stance and movement, the soft rumble of his voice as he'd first taught me these things. 

I'd been so young and so ignorant when I'd come to him. Knowing only what the elders of my pacifistic clan had taught me. That, and hate, new-minted and raw. Without him, even if I hadn't been wounded by the goldens, I don't think I would have survived for long. Not with the need to fight and kill raging within me, and only the crudest notion of how to do those things. He'd been the one who'd taught me strategy and patience. Without him, I would just have flung myself onto their spears, not counting the cost as long as I managed to take one, just one, golden dragon with me. 

Without him, I would never have laughed again. Without him, I would have gone to my dissolution without ever knowing what it was to be in love, even if it was an odd, half-crippled love that we could never safely discuss, even with one another. 

Without him, there would have been no point to my survival in the first place. 

My eyes were stinging, blurring . . . No. I wouldn't cry. He'd always hated that. It hadn't happened often—maybe twice, three times, I had been so wrung out and drained of strength that I'd been unable to hold back the tears or use them to fuel my rage—and each time, I'd seen a terrible, disturbing expression on his face: helplessness. He was an all-powerful Dark Lord, and he'd had no idea of how to comfort a crying dragon. The best he'd been able to do was hold me, with that confused, almost desperate look in his eyes, until I had no more tears left. 

I didn't want to ever make him feel that way again . . . but I was too experienced to make a promise that I wouldn't, even to myself. Promises of that nature are a luxury that Mazoku can seldom afford. Not that most of them would even care about the emotional factors involved in the first place. 

_I love you . . ._ I wished, now, that I'd had the courage to say it. I didn't think he would have laughed, although the response might have burned his tongue. Or maybe he _would_ have laughed—at himself, with a reflexive twinge of irony. Because speaking those words was one of the things I could do that he couldn't, and there weren't supposed to be things an all-powerful Dark Lord couldn't do. 

I would have to try it, I told myself, once I had him back. Even if I didn't know what his reaction would be, I knew it would _matter_ to him. 

I spun slowly to a stop, like a clockwork toy winding down, and returned the sword to its scabbard. The moon was edging toward the horizon. Just a little longer now. 

I went back inside, impatient and restless. I was desperate to start and desperate for this not to fail, muscles tightening slowly until I forced them to relax. No. I would do this on schedule. Not one moment too early or one moment too late. Everything would be perfect. 

No matter what it cost me. 

I fumbled through my pockets for something to occupy my hands, but all I found was a piece of string. Well, I could manage something with that. I wound it idly around my fingers, stretched it between my hands . . . Cat's cradle, the game that Filia had taught me while I'd been a tiny hatchling sitting on her lap. 

She'd tried so hard, stupid little golden. She couldn't give me what I needed, and yet . . . she'd tried so _hard_ . . . _I think I feel a bit sorry for her,_ I realized as my fingers slowly wove the string into an onion. She never had sorted out her feelings. There had always been the least hint of guilt when she interacted with me. Even my ignorant hatchling-self had been able to sense it. 

I hadn't written her once since I'd left. Jillas, regularly, twice a year, but never Filia. I'd always thought she had a weird kind of dependence on me, and I wanted her to make a clean break. If that was even possible. 

_Not that I'm doing so well myself in the clean break department,_ I thought, glancing ruefully over toward the magic circle. Now, how did that string broom go . . . ? I got the string tangled around my fingers transitioning away from the onion, and was forced to slip it off my hands, then went methodically to work unknotting it. By the time I was done, the moon had disappeared. 

Well, then. 

I stood up and swallowed down the lump in my throat. _This is it._ Suddenly, I was covered in cold sweat. I would never admit it to anyone else, but I was terrified. I had one chance at this. If I failed here, I was unlikely to be able to scrape together enough other remnants of his power for a second attempt. If I failed . . . I shook my head. _Don't even think it._

My position relative to the circle had to be just so. Or maybe it didn't. I hadn't been able to figure out just how important that part was, so all I could do was try my best to do it right along with everything else. I'd drawn a crude X on the floor as a position marker, and I positioned myself now with one foot to either side of it. 

I took a deep breath and spoke in a language that might have been almost as old as the being I was trying to summon. No modern tongue could be twisted around to mean what I needed this to say, and it had taken me more than a year to piece together these Chaos Words alone. 

Light flared from the magic circle as I continued, crackling white and red at first, and then, as I continued to chant, smoothing into gold as wind tore at my hair and clothing. 

" _Antien Revors Maken Vienit!_ " 

I dropped to my knees as magic poured out of me, the crackling gold light shooting higher and higher until a silhouette appeared at the center of the circle, a tall figure with his head thrown back. A roar blasted into my ears, a voice thundering anger and pain and defiance as the figure crashed to the floor. 

The gold faded. The wind died. The room went eerily silent, filled only with the sound of harsh breathing, mine and the other's. I couldn't seem to see clearly—he looked like a tangled mass of orange-gold and blood-red in the flickering lamplight. 

I licked dry lips, and forced out, "Gaav-sama?" 

"Val? Son of a bitch. So you found a way to break the Barrier after all." A harsh, breathy laugh. "And I think you just saved my ass. What did I do to deserve you?" 

"Are you all right?" _Of course he isn't. I snatched him straight from the moment of his death._

"Heh. Not even nearly. Phibby gutted me like a fucking fish. I'm losing a lot of energy. Probably blood, too." As he rolled over and tried to sit up, I realized to my horror that someone had tried to chop him in pieces vertically. There was a wound running from his shoulder to his waist that was leaking copious amounts of blood and sizzling black gunk—Mazoku astral energy. It had been less than a minute, and there was already a puddle forming around him on the floor. 

"Don't move," I told him. I grabbed a wad of bandages from among the supplies I'd laid out and entered the circle, with residual energy crackling for a moment around my feet as I broke the chalk lines. The physical bleeding, no matter how serious, wasn't my first concern, though, despite the bandages. It was Gaav-sama's astral energy that was keeping him alive, and if he lost too much it would be fatal no matter how much bandaging I did. Whatever had hit him had cut through his heart and left lung and who knew what else further down. A real human injured that way would already have been dead. 

I squatted down beside him and dropped into a half-trance. My sensitivity to the astral was less than I had possessed as a hybrid, but it didn't take much mental groping around in the dark to find the Very Large three-headed dragon that was collapsed in front of me with its chest sliced open. I used a shamanistic spell to spin off some of my own energy, encapsulating it carefully so that it wouldn't leak away, and used it to pack the ugly slash wound. 

Gaav-sama released his breath in a soft hiss. "Feels like liquid fire." 

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what else to do." 

"It's fine," he said. "Fucking good reminder that I shouldn't pull anything that stupid again." 

"If you do, I'll kill you myself," I said. "Ready for the second half?" 

"Any time." 

The problem with the physical bandaging was his left arm. The muscles that would have let him lift it had been severed, and I had a hard time lifting it out of the way and wrapping the bandages at the same time. 

"Just strap the whole thing down," he growled after half a minute or so of largely futile effort. "It'll be days before I can use it again anyway." 

And so he ended up with his upper arm pinned to his side inside the cocoon of bandages that was pretty much all that was holding his body together right now. 

"And now we're both going to bed," I told him. 

"I'm starting to wonder just which of us is in charge here," he said . . . but his eyes sparkled with amusement. Since I'd packed his astral wound, he seemed to have revived quite a bit. 

"The Golden Lord," I said. "I'm fairly sure all of this is Her fault." 

Gaav-sama chuckled, then winced, pressing his right hand to his bandaged shoulder. "Try not to say anything too funny, or I might come apart in pieces. Fucking painful for me, and a lot of wasted effort for you." 

"Ugh, don't even . . ." I was shaking, I realized. And my eyes were stinging again. 

Gaav-sama reached out with his good arm and wrapped it around me, pulling me against him. I tried to resist, but my legs gave out all at once, and I fell sideways into his lap. He smelled like he hadn't washed properly in a month or more, and his breathing was irregular, his muscles tense with pain . . . but he was also warm and solid and _there_ , and I was getting him wet because I was crying on him. I flushed with shame, but I couldn't seem to stop. 

"I . . . I don't . . ." My throat stopped up completely. Words just wouldn't come. 

His hand slid slowly down my spine, big and strong and warm. "Val . . . Valgaav. It's fine. It's _fine_." 

It wasn't until a warm droplet splashed against the back of my neck that I realized he was crying too. 

I looked up at him, reached up to trace the wet path that tear had left from eye to cheek to chin. _He looks tired._

"We need to talk," he said then, visibly pulling himself together. "It's pretty obvious that there's been some shit going on that I don't know about. But I don't think this is the time. We're both right on the edge of being out cold." 

"I did say we should both go to bed." I forced a smile through the tears, and gestured over at the rough nest I'd made from my bedroll. 

"You're going to have to get off me first, little dragon." But his hand just kept rubbing the small of my back. 

"Then you're going to have to let go of me." 

He sighed. "Fuck, I suppose you're right." His hand came to rest beside him on the floor, and I forced myself back to my feet. 

He somehow managed to stand on his own, but once there it was clear that his balance was even more precarious than mine. We made it to the bedroll leaning on each other. 

Gaav-sama curled up on his good side with a grunt. I pulled his boots off, then my own, somehow, before collapsing beside him. I was afraid I would hurt him if I snuggled up too close—surely any pressure on that shoulder would be agonizing. Feeling that frozen, empty place inside me finally warm and full again would be enough for tonight. 

But then I felt a wisp of power tugging at me, and a sleepy murmur. "Damned dragon. Get over here. S'cold." 

And so I pulled myself closer, pillowing my head on his good arm, and fell asleep listening to the soft sound of his breathing.


	11. Chapter 11

I woke up still cuddled against him, with my nose full of the smells of steel and dragon musk and unwashed human. The sun was slanting in through the open half-door, and I guessed it was probably around noon. 

My stomach growled, and I sighed inwardly. Rest and food were the two things anyone needed most after draining their entire magic pool, and now that I'd had the former, my body was insisting on the latter. Well, no choice, then. One of us had to be in fighting condition, just in case something happened. 

I sat up and stretched. Beside me, Gaav-sama stirred, and one eye flickered open. 

"Val? Fuck, your hair's nearly white. What are you doing?" 

"I'm going to get some food. It's probably better if you stay here. I warded the building, so no one should be able to tell what's going on inside." He was right about my hair, I discovered as I pulled a length down in front of my nose. White sprinkled with aqua. Well, that wasn't unexpected, and it would go back to normal soon enough. 

"Mmh. Wake me up when you get back." The blue eye slid shut again. 

I hoped that meant he wasn't going to be a pain in the ass about eating and resting properly. He could be, sometimes, just because he hated the fact that he had a body and it had needs. He could trick it to some extent by feeding on negative energy, but that only worked for a few days at a time even when he was healthy. 

A crooked smile spread across my face. It felt so good just to be able to worry about these _little_ things again. 

The inn gave me a jug of soup, a jug of beer, a loaf of fresh bread, a small roast chicken, two apple tarts, and a basket to carry the lot in, although they charged through the nose for it. Under the circumstances, I didn't much care, though. 

When I got back to the stone barn, he was no longer lying among the blankets. My heart jumped into my throat before I spotted him over by the magic circle I had drawn on the floor, apparently studying it. He chuckled softly without looking up. 

"Careful, little dragon—sudden scares like that aren't good for you. I'm not so fragile right now that I'm going to disappear or fall over dead." He paused, and added, "Phibby's gone, isn't he? I can feel that the balance is different, and his sigil doesn't react." 

I nodded. "He forced Lina Inverse to cast a spell invoking the power of the Lord of Nightmares, the same one she used on the fragment of Ruby-Eye. It got the Golden One's attention. Apparently, She didn't approve of what Hellmaster was doing, and turned him into a dustpile." 

"Hah! Serves the little fucker right. He never did have much common sense." A hesitation, then, "How long since . . . ?" 

"Nearly eighty years," I admitted. 

His head jerked up. " _Eighty?_ Val, what the fuck . . . ?" 

"It's complicated. I promise I'll explain everything, but let's eat first. You need to look after your body, at least until you're healed." 

"Fucking meatsack," he muttered . . . but he did sit down across from me as I laid out the food. We ate mostly in silence, and I felt my stomach slowly curdling as I forced food into it. If I stopped eating, though, he might as well, and he needed the nourishment. There were slight hollows under his cheekbones that suggested he'd neglected himself again while hunting Lina Inverse. 

Gaav-sama was the one who ate both the apple tarts and drank the last of the beer, while I tried hard not to think about anything at all. 

"Now," he said when he was done. "If I understand what you were doing with that circle, I've been nowhere for the better part of a century, so you just have to cover what happened to everyone else. I . . . died, or as good as. Phibby died. Something happened to you that stripped my power out of you. With Phibby and I gone, the others have probably been switching back and forth between giving the Dragon Gods the hairy eyeball, and pretending they don't want to run around in little circles and scream. It's you that I mostly want to know about right now. Just start at the beginning." 

"The beginning is the worst part," I said, and forced a ghost of a chuckle. "When I felt you die, I pretty much lost my mind. Widowed dragons often kill themselves, but I couldn't bring myself to just give up. At the same time, I didn't know what to do beyond trying to survive. Zelas, Dynast, and Dolphin all sent various minions after us to . . . clean up. In the end, I was the only survivor, although I picked up a beastman and a troll-lizardman cross along the way. Jillas I found in the ruins of the foxman village where he'd lived. Gravos had been beaten nearly to death and abandoned by the band of trolls he'd been living with—apparently they didn't like intellectual wimps who could speak the common tongue articulately. I'd been with them for a few months when we ran into the oddest bastard I'd ever seen in my life . . ." 

It got a little easier then, as I talked about Almayce and Darkstar and Lina Inverse and the madness that had caused me to nearly destroy the world. About midway through it, Gaav-sama's hand came to rest on my shoulder, although he didn't say a word. 

"I should have died, but the Lord of Nightmares returned me to the world as an eggling, purged of all Mazoku power. I grew up again with no memory, just vague dreams that I didn't think were of any importance. More than seventy years went by that way. And then, thanks to a stupid little romance-divination spell of the kind used by lovesick teenagers everywhere, I suddenly recovered my memory six years ago. At first, I wanted to take everything out on the Golden One Herself, but then I realized I might have been sent back for a reason." I snorted softly. "A broken teacup showed me the way. From there, all I needed to bring you back was a spell no one had ever cast before, and a sample of your power." 

"And you never even considered just leaving me dead?" 

"Dragons mate for life," I said simply. "Without you, I wouldn't be whole. I need you. And if I'm right about why the Golden One sent me back . . . then I think the world needs you too." 

"That," Gaav-sama muttered, "is a pretty fucking disturbing thought. Not your fault, though." There was a long pause before he added, "I know it's not the same, but . . . what pissed me off the most, there at the end, was that I was never going to see you again. I always seem to be happier when you're around." 

"If I'd had the choice, I would have been there with you." I had to push the words out around another lump forming in my throat. 

"I know, little dragon. I know. In hindsight, I fucked the whole thing up pretty badly. If you'd been there, you might even have spotted Phibby before he had a chance to attack. You've always had good instincts." Another long pause. We were both awkwardly trying to feel our way back into our relationship, neither of us quite sure how much had changed. "The question is, what do you want to do now?" 

"Me?" I blinked at him, surprised and confused. "I had expected . . . that you would . . ." 

Gaav-sama shrugged his good shoulder. "My old plans are no good now. It's going to be a while before I figure out what the next step is. Hell, I'm not even sure which direction I want to head in, beyond keeping the others from getting too grabby. So if you've got any unfinished business, now would be a good time." 

There was really only one thing, or rather only one person, who came to mind. "Xellos," I said, throat vibrating as I growled. "I want to turn that bastard into dust and sparks. All the others that I hated are dead. He's the only one left." 

Gaav-sama chuckled darkly. "Oh, believe me, he's on my list too. Setting him up for the kill is going to take work, though. Slippery little bastard. Is that the only thing? Nothing else?" 

"I want my power and my real body back. I hate being this weak, soft, _helpless_ little—" I forced myself to stop in mid-sentence, knowing that the complaints weren't useful. "Beyond that, so long as we're together, I couldn't care less." 

"You're not helpless. Or you had better not be, after I spent all that time training you." 

"Not against mortals or lesser Mazoku, maybe, but against the likes of Xellos . . ." 

"Raw power alone won't help you much against him, but I do understand. It's going to be another day or two before I have the energy to spare to do anything for you, though. I'm still leaking a bit. Not serious, but I'm going to be managing my power carefully until it stops." 

"I can wait. I'd rather you not take risks." 

"I know. I've got to admit, I'm a bit burned out on risk-taking myself right now." 

I leaned a bit closer to Gaav-sama, and his good arm slid around me. I had to admit that there was something to be said for having no lesser Mazoku around. In the old days, we would have had to make a careful check to make sure we really were private before cuddling up like this. Mazoku didn't need affection, so wanting it suggested weakness. And even more than Gaav-sama, weakness was something I, the hybrid, hadn't been able to afford to show. 

We spent most of the afternoon that way, just sitting together and talking. I'd never have expected that being cross-examined about the world's political situation could be comforting, but there you have it. 

"What happened to Lina Inverse, anyway?" Gaav-sama asked as we tucked into another excellent but expensive meal from the inn. 

"As of six years ago, she was still in good health and wandering around turning bandits into charcoal in company with her pet swordsman. Why, were you thinking of recruiting her?" 

He snorted. "I would if I could, little dragon, but she isn't the kind to be tempted by power or immortality. I'd have to set things up so that she was in the same position you were when I found you, and even then there's a pretty good chance she'd expend what life she had left to try to blow me up rather than taking my hand. If there were any way of roping her in, Zelas would have done it by now. Mostly, I was just curious. She made one hell of an impression." He touched his bandaged shoulder with a grimace. "Phibby wouldn't have done nearly as much damage if she hadn't gotten to me first." 

"Is it healing at all?" A cold tremor ran down my spine at the thought that it might not be. 

"Don't worry, it is. You can rebandage it for me tomorrow—I think I'll be able to lift the arm by then, at least for a couple of minutes. I'm just leaking a bit on the astral, that's all, and even that's trivial. You did a good job of patching me up. And I swear by the Golden Lord that I won't lie to you about my condition. After everything you've done, you deserve at least that much honesty from me." 

There aren't many kinds of promises that a Mazoku won't break, but one made in Her name might just be the exception. And I was shocked that he would make such a promise to me, of all people. 

"Gaav-sama . . ." 

"Just Gaav," he corrected, his expression serious. "I can't accept that kind of subservience from you, little dragon. I can't put you in the same category as Rashatt and the others anymore. Do you really think any of _them_ would have spent years busting their asses to find a way to save my life? I doubt they even gave me ten seconds' thought before picking another Dark Lord to brown-nose to. You're my mate and my partner, Val, and I want everyone to understand that. You included." 

I just nodded. I didn't dare try to say anything. I was pretty sure that if I had, my voice would have cracked. Either that, or I would have woken up curled up in a crude pile of furs at Almayce's stronghold and discovered that all of this had only been a dream. 

"Now, if you're going to insist on stuffing me with food, I'm going to insist on doing the same to you. And like hell am I going to waste beer this good." 

"Of course, it's all about the beer," I said, smirking, and he grinned back. 

It occurred to me as we ate that I could almost be content just like this. Living in a barn and doing not much of anything. So long as he was there. 

I laid out the blankets with more care that night, making a point of doing so just as the sun went down, and of preparing for sleep myself even though I wasn't very tired. Gaav-sa— _Gaav_ smiled crookedly as he watched me, so I was pretty sure he understood why I was doing things that way, but he laid down beside me anyway, spooning his body around mine. 

"Goodnight, little dragon," he muttered into my hair. 

"Goodnight," I murmured back. 

I woke not long after dawn. This time, I just lay there for a while with my eyes closed, listening to the sound of his steady breathing while I tried to lay out some kind of agenda for the day in my mind. It was kind of difficult, because I knew that a lot of it depended on the state Gaav-sa— _Gaav's_ wound was in when I rebandaged it. He really did need a bath, and I should be able to rent the inn's one-tub bathing shed for an hour for a few bronze pieces, but if the wound wasn't yet closed, he'd have to make do with a sponge bath. 

I was assuming, too, that he would go along with what I suggested. I knew from experience that he could be stubborn. _Damned grumpy Mazoku._ _My_ damned grumpy Mazoku. I couldn't help the smile as it spread across my face. 

I propped myself up on an elbow, and he shifted, muttering something incomprehensible and scowling at nothing. The sunlight gilding his features didn't soften them one bit. Sharp nose, strong chin, wide, stubborn mouth. Not pretty, although there was a certain functional beauty in the strength of his body, the grace and precision of his movements, and the intelligence and passion in his eyes. _Pretty_ was easy, though. You could find _pretty_ anywhere, but never, ever another like him. 

Leaning down, I pressed my lips to his and heard his breath hitch and saw those ocean-blue eyes flicker open. In a split second, he was kissing me back aggressively, tongue mapping the inside of my mouth. 

"I think that's my second-favourite way to wake up," he said with a familiar smirk. 

"Oh? And what's your first favourite?" I asked, giving him a sharp look. 

He chuckled. "Already inside you, little dragon. Of course." 

I couldn't completely repress the moan as memories of waking up just that way flashed through my mind. 

"You know," my mate said, "even if it's going to be a while before I can do push-ups, if you get on top of me I can probably manage something." The smirk was more of a leer now. 

But I forced myself to shake my head, even though I ached to have him touch me that way. "Not like this—not in this hatchling's body. It would feel wrong." 

"Do you hate it that much?" His expression was serious now. 

"More than I ever thought possible." I could feel my fingernails bite flesh as my hands curled into fists. "Every moment I lived—every choice I ever made—was torn from me when the Lord of Nightmares sent me back. As though nothing I did mattered in any way at all. As though I deserved no better than to be erased. As though _my people_ deserved no better than to be erased. There's no one else left who remembers what we were, and She just wiped all of that away. It may sound crazy, but those scars on my hide marked an important event in my life, and I want them _back_. No matter how dark and ugly and bitter the memories that go with them are." The sound I made was more of a bark than a laugh. "I guess you could say that it's symbolic." 

"Then it's a good thing I remember where they all were. We'll get you fixed up as soon as I'm sure I can spare the power—later today, probably." 

"Are you sure that's not too soon?" 

"Val, I haven't suddenly turned into some kind of fucking glass Cephiedmas ornament. I could do it now without actually hurting myself—it's just that my reserves are still a bit low. Now, can you help me with this stupid bandage? I'm tired of being a lame duck." 

He'd always known that the best way to deal with my . . . moods . . . was to give me something to do, damn him, and this time was no different. My depression lessened when he demonstrated that he _could_ lift his arm out of my way, although he couldn't hold it up for very long without additional support. It became clear why once I had the bandage unwrapped: while the bones of his shoulderblade and ribcage had grown back together, the muscles covering them were only starting to knit. At some points, the canyon in his flesh was deep enough that it could have swallowed the top two joints of my finger, if I'd dared to prod at it. Nothing was bleeding or oozing, at least, although the flesh along the edges was reddish and inflamed. If I looked in at just the right angle, I could see his heart pulsing steadily. Disturbing as hell, but it did seem to be getting better. 

"I'm going to rebandage it, and make you a sling," I said. "And you're going to wear it." 

"Pushy little dragon. All right." 

Afterwards, I mended his shirt, or tried to, sitting crosslegged where the light was best. He just watched me, gaze steady and amused, raising his eyebrows as I pricked my fingers with the needle and swore. 

"I think I've heard you speak more Draconic in the past half-hour than in the five hundred years before my run-in with Phibby," he said at one point. 

"That's because this is one hell of a lot more difficult than it looks," I snapped. 

"You don't have to fix it, you know." 

"I'm not going to have you waste power on conjuring up clothes," I growled. "Not until you're properly healed. And you're not going out without a shirt." 

He smirked. "Don't want anyone else ogling what's yours?" 

"And what if I don't?" 

"Then I'm going to hold you to the same rules." The gleam in his eye said more than the words. 

I did get it sewn up eventually, although the work wouldn't be winning any prizes. Huge stitches, plus lumps and puckers where I hadn't gotten the fabric aligned properly. At least the result looked like it would still fit him. I was not going to tackle his coat, though. And I was really, really glad that I hadn't had to sew up his shoulder. 

Gaav was sitting among the blankets of our bed, but the abstracted expression on his face suggested that most of his attention was on the astral. I folded the shirt and set it down beside him, and he blinked and refocused. 

"Come here, Val." He patted a spot beside him with his good hand. "You might want to take off your clothes first, though." 

I bit back the first response that occurred to me, because I could see that his expression was serious. "You said 'later today'," I tried instead. 

"And it's later. A couple of hours later. Plus, we're going to be doing the non-physical part of this in stages—now that I've had time to plan it, I'm pretty sure that's the best way. I don't want to fuck it up like I did the last time. This time, it's going to be perfect. And I'm not going to have to fix you every time your instincts get the better of you and some bit of your real form pops out. You're not going to be back up to full power immediately, though." 

_Perfect . . ._ It should have been a terrifying thought. _Perfect_ meant a stable mixture of black and holy magic inside my body. Even as Darkstar's vessel, I'd never quite been what my mate was proposing to make of me. But instead of fear, I felt hunger. I wanted to be strong. Strong enough to, for just once in my life, be able to protect the things that mattered to me. 

I nodded and began to strip, ignoring the goosebumps that developed as I bared my skin to the morning air. I sat where he had indicated, and he rearranged himself so that his legs were spread to either side of me, his chest pressed against my back. His arms wrapped loosely around me, and he put one hand on my chest and the other on my belly. 

It wasn't at all like the first time. I'd had to die, that night in the desert, in order for him to overcome the resistance my power offered his. This time, everything in me recognized my mate's touch and opened to him, even though our energies should have been incompatible. That didn't mean it didn't hurt, little crackles of pain starting up wherever red fire touched white, but it was a pain that I welcomed. 

At first, all he seemed to be interested in doing was tracing the pathways my dragon power travelled through my body. Humans talk about magic pool capacity, but it's really more of a river, circulating irregularly through the owner's physical and astral bodies and skipping from one plane to the other whenever it feels like it. Right now, I knew exactly where mine went, because every inch of that path was picked out in stinging golden sparks. My muscles tensed with the pain, but I forced myself to stay silent and keep breathing deeply. 

Then Gaav began carefully laying down a tracery of Mazoku power inside me, a trickle that nowhere intersected with what was already there. It was far more delicate work than I had ever seen him do before, with some bits apparently needing to be placed just so, and it took a long time before he was satisfied and his attention shifted to the physical aspects of my body. 

There was no warning, just a wash of hot power and a sudden agonizing pressure in my bones. I howled, but that more due to the suddenness of it than anything. This too was a welcome pain, a pain that pushed my limbs out longer and thickened layers of muscle. Through burning eyes, I saw the scars appear—first the one on my chest where his sword had gone in, and then all the others, one by one. 

The agony faded slowly, leaving me sweat-slick and gasping, leaning back against Gaav's bandaged chest. My mind felt raw, the astral senses I'd possessed as a Mazoku shocked open again. I couldn't tell whether my ability—and need—to feed on negative emotions had returned with it, but I expected I would find out soon enough. 

I surveyed my body slowly, noting that the scars looked old and faded, just like I remembered them. I was hard-muscled and whipcord-lean and for the first time since forever, everything seemed to be in the right place. Well, except for one detail that I discovered as I ran my hand across my forehead. 

"Don't tell me you actually wanted the horn back," my mate rumbled. 

"Not really," I admitted. "I won't say it was completely useless, but I hated getting it caught in my clothes." 

"There were a few other things it got in the way for, too." He kissed the back of my neck, hands wandering over my thighs. I groaned wordlessly and tilted my head to the left so that he could nip his way down the side of my neck. Suddenly, every inch of my skin was awake and hungry for his touch. "I hope you've got some oil somewhere," he murmured. 

I smirked. "I found something better, actually." 

"Oh? Like what?" 

"Well, you see, about three hundred years ago, there was this Guild sorcerer who had a taste for big men. He invented a spell so that he'd always be slick and stretched and ready . . . and then left his notes in the Guild library . . ." 

Gaav chuckled. "And you found them, hmm? I take it it's got a short casting time." I could feel the huge lump of his erection pressing against my ass—clearly, just the thought of the spell was a turn-on for him. My cock was already pointing straight out. 

"About ten seconds. I have to admit, though, before I found it, I never realized that Chaos Words could be that filthy." 

"Chaos Words can be anything at all, little dragon. They're about invoking thought patterns, not transmitting precise information. You're going to have to shift a bit so that I can get my pants open, or you're going to have to sew those up too." 

I captured his hand and brought it to my lips. "Just lie back and let me do the work," I said. 

"Stubborn," he muttered. But when I got up on my knees, he leaned back with a sigh, and with his cooperation I had him properly naked in less than a minute. 

I spoke the spell out loud, punctuating it with a groan as I felt my inner muscles relax involuntarily. When I'd tested this, I'd been able to stuff more than a foot of my tail inside myself. Now, facing a familiar cock that had to be at least that long, I was outright salivating. This was going to feel _so_ good. 

I straddled him on my knees, guided the head of his cock into place, and began to slowly lower myself. He made a grab for my hips before he was even properly inside me, clearly intending to guide me down faster, but ended up hissing through his teeth when his left arm just wouldn't move as he'd envisioned. 

"I told you," I said. "Let me do the work. And I want to be able to feel every . . . single . . . inch." I smirked, licking my lips, as his breathing hitched. 

"I suppose I can oblige you. Horny little dragon." 

"Can you blame me? It's been a few months for you, but the better part of a century for me. In that whole time, I haven't even kissed anybody else, much less done _this_." I pushed down, and let the head of his cock pop into my body. We both groaned. "My tail isn't a satisfactory substitute for you, you know." 

"I'd fucking well hope not." He reached up with his good hand to cup my face. I only needed the smallest of motions of my head to kiss his palm. And I did, as I slid slowly lower. "Fuck, Val, you're going to drive me insane." 

"That's the idea." 

It took me more than a full minute to bottom out, I think. By that time he was almost grinding his teeth with frustration, and I . . . well, it had been a very long time since I was so gloriously full. The way he pressed inside me sent a little shudder of pleasure through me with every heartbeat. I felt like I was going to melt, or blow up, or smash through the roof like one of Jillas' rockets and go flying away over the horizon. I was squeezing the base of my cock hard, fighting for control over my body. Then he moved, arching his back to push up into me, lifting my entire body with his hips, and I howled. My hand squeezed hard, and with my orgasm thwarted, my wings tore loose from my back instead, expanding in a burst of black feather-scales. 

"You've got no idea what a turn-on that is," my mate said thickly, and reached out, prying my fingers loose, closing his hand over my cock, strong and warm and rough with callus against the sensitive skin. 

_You can't let anyone else be in control for even a minute._ That's what I meant to say, but it came out as a jumble of syllables as he fingered me just so, Common and Draconic and pure gibberish all mixed together. I was close, too close, and I began to ride him hard, bobbing up and down. A race to make him come before I did, to milk him empty, and that was fine too, anything and everything so fucking good that I didn't care anymore whose idea it was. 

"Val . . ." His voice was little more than a growl as one fingertip slipped down to tease my balls. "C'mon, Val, come for me . . ." 

My body interpreted it as a command, pushing me straight over the edge. I roared, my voice echoing from the walls of the threshing barn as my cock erupted heavily, years of pent-up frustration spilling out all at once. The echoes hadn't even begun to fade when Gaav added to them, voice thundering out as he filled me. My body absorbed the dark energy from his seed greedily, drawing it into the delicate paths he'd already laid down. The sensation pulled a part of my mind onto the astral, where our dragon bodies were entwined side-by-side, a dizzying and confusing difference in positions. 

Drawing myself back down to the physical again, I found him stroking my wings. 

"Do they hurt?" Ocean-blue eyes watched me intently as he asked the question. 

"No," I said, fluffing them. "Not at all. It's great." Once again, the smile was involuntary. I could feel the dark energy circulating through my body, and yet I was . . . whole. 

"Thank you," I added softly, and his eyes warmed in a way that I seldom saw. 

"Anything for you, little dragon." He ruffled my feathers gently, then smoothed them back into place before I could complain about them being displaced. 

"Does that include taking a bath?" I asked. 

His eyebrows rose. "If you can find me somewhere to take one, sure. Although you're going to need one too. My hand isn't exactly clean right now, you know." 

I blinked. Looked at my wing. Saw the strings of sticky fluid dripping off the feathers. "You son of a bitch," I said, but in the end, I couldn't stop myself from laughing. "Okay. I'll try to rent the bathhouse at the inn, such as it is, after we have breakfast. We might as well eat there since we're going to have to go down there anyway, unless you really don't want to be seen." 

"No, that's fine. Might be nice to have a real bed, too." 

I shook my head. "They don't have one big enough for you to be comfortable—I checked. And I don't have much money left anyway." 

My mate snorted. "I could probably afford to buy the country, if I really wanted to. But you're right, it doesn't sound like it's worth it. I expect we'll be moving on in another day or two, to . . . Where the fuck are we, anyway?" 

"Central Dils. The village we're on the outskirts of is called Marshton, originally enough." Lifting myself off him made even more of a squishy mess. I grimaced and went to get some rags to wipe up with. I wanted to get rid of the worst before I pulled my wings back in, or that part of the mess would end up on my back, where I'd have a hard time getting at it to clean. "If you want somewhere to go where Xellos won't look for us while you finish healing, we could try Seyruun. So long as we don't go back to Mossport, I honestly don't care." 

"Traveling around for awhile sounds kind of appealing right now. Seeing the sights, hearing the gossip about whatever fucking stupid situation the humans have gotten themselves into this time . . ." 

" . . . and figuring out how to turn it to our advantage," I finished for him. 

"You read my mind." We exchanged grins. 

Once we were dressed, we sauntered casually down the road to the Goosedown Pillow, which I still thought was a silly name for an inn. We passed exactly three people, and all of them turned to stare at us. Well, I suppose we were a striking pair—hatchling-me might have become a familiar sight in the area over the past few days, but not real-me, and Gaav tended to turn heads wherever he went, even among people who didn't know they were looking at a Dark Lord. Plus, my clothes had gone from loose to muscle-emphasizing tight since the previous evening, or at least I hoped that was why that woman was staring at me that way. 

The bell above the inn's door tinkled as I pushed it back. Inside, the common room was . . . unexpectedly occupied. 

"Val, hey! That really is you, isn't it?" 

I blinked. "Erig? What are you doing back here?" 

The mercenary grinned. "Looking for you, would you believe? We got back to the trade road, and found a couple of guys there who were trying to run down 'Val Ul Copt, also known as Val the Gold'. They didn't have enough money on them to hire all of us, so Foltig and Hen-chan and I offered to bring them here while everyone else took a job with a merchant caravan. We're supposed to meet up in Gyria City in a couple of weeks. So this is your partner, eh?" 

"Yeah." I didn't say anything else. Let Gaav decide how he was going to introduce himself. 

"Huh. Not what I expected, but I'm damned if I know what I did expect." Erig gave Gaav a careful once-over, head to toe, then took a second look at the sling and the sloppy mend in the bigger man's shirt, pursing his lips in a soundless whistle. "Fuck, Tiny, what happened to you? If your shirt got cut open all the way down to there, front and back, you should be resting in pieces, not standing there giving me the fish-eye." 

"Some Mazoku happened," Gaav rumbled. "I was so busy with the one in front of me that I didn't spot the one in back in time. Fortunately, I'm pretty tough to kill. And the name's Gavrik. Call me 'Tiny' again and I tear off your balls and serve them to you on toast." He gave Erig a nasty smirk. He also put his arm around my shoulders, a tacit _don't touch_ that Erig was probably too dumb to get even if he had been interested. 

"Don't do that, please," Foltig said from halfway up the stairs. "I don't want to have to do his part of the reproducing for him. And besides, his junk's probably poisonous." He descended the rest of the way to the ground floor, followed by three other people who stared at me, goggle-eyed. 

The first was Hen-chan. I'd been expecting him. 

The second limped down the stairs leaning on a cane and blinking his sole good eye. _Damn stupid fox! He's too old to travel!_ And yet there was no mistaking Jillas for anyone else. 

And the third person was going to be trouble. 

"Val? Is that . . . really you?" Kellelan asked.


	12. Chapter 12

"I think you'd better make the introductions, little dragon," my mate said into the sudden oppressive silence. 

I forced myself to nod. "Foltig, Erig, and Hendrick belong to the mercenary troop I hired to help me search the swamp. The fox is Jillas, whom I've known . . . for a very long time." 

"And the half-elf?" 

"His name is Kellelan. He's . . ." I found myself at a loss for words. Kel had been the hatchling's friend, but he didn't even know the real me. 

"I'm Val's friend," Kel said. "Or at least, I thought I was. And I'm not sure I like the way you're touching him. Plus, if you have anything to do with those scars—" 

"Only in the sense that he saved my life the night I picked them up," I said. "Kel, Gavrik is my mate." 

"Your what?" 

"Mate. And lifelong partner since before you were born." 

" _What?_ " 

I sighed. "Kel, just about everything you know about me—just about everything _I_ used to think I knew about me—is a lie. Or at least there's a lot of the truth missing. Filia didn't want to tell me anything because she thought that if I knew who I really was, I'd be miserable." 

"I don't understand." Kel looked at Jillas, and seemed dismayed when the old fox nodded. 

"About a hundred years ago, the two of us tangled with some Mazoku," Gaav said, finally taking pity on me. "They turned Val back into an egg and imprisoned me in a place outside the physical plane. I was stuck there until a couple of days ago, in stasis." He scowled eloquently. 

"And because I got turned back into an egg, I didn't remember anything about any of it until everything suddenly came back to me a couple of months before I left Mossport," I concluded. 

"And once it did, you just had to rush out and do something about it." Kel still looked very unhappy. 

"Dragons mate for life, Kel. Without Gavrik, I would always have been incomplete. I felt hollow the whole time I was living in Mossport—I just didn't understand why." 

The mercenaries were all staring at me again. 

"You're a . . . dragon?" Foltig asked. 

I'd forgotten I hadn't told them that part. I just nodded. There was no point in trying to cover it up now. 

I didn't really want to kill them, after all. 

Hen-chan cleared his throat. "I'd heard that greater dragons could shapeshift, but I didn't realize the results were so . . . realistic." His eyes were round as saucers. 

"I always thought it was kind of weird that Filia-san always used to screw up and let her tail pop out, and you never did," Kel added. "You're really older than she is, aren't you." 

I nodded again. "I was hatched—the first time—about fifty years after the Kouma War. Filia's only about four hundred, and she acts younger than she is." 

"'S'true," Jillas added. "All of it. I knew Val-sama long before I met Filia-sama. If I hadn't, I'd be dead by now—he's the one as patched me up after I lost my eye." 

Kel blinked several times. "I don't even know what question to ask first." 

"Let's try sitting down and ordering some food first," I said. "I don't know about you, but we're both starved. Once the food's on the way, I'll try to lay some of it out for you." 

It was a delicate exercise in truth, half-truth, and outright lie. The murder of my people, I covered almost honestly. The meeting in the desert was carefully tweaked to make "Gavrik" a wandering Mazoku chimera rather than a Dark Lord, and avoided any reference to my becoming Mazoku or swearing fealty to him—instead, he rescued me using white magic, which I knew he could cast even though it wasn't comfortable for him. The heart-rending tale of our separation was complete fiction, but it kept everyone listening raptly . . . except Jillas, who obviously knew I was selling everyone else a bill of goods. He had good enough control of his expressions not to show it, though. 

"So what're you two going to do now?" Foltig asked when I ran out of ideas and shifted to attacking my cooling plate of bacon and eggs. 

Gaav shrugged one shoulder. "We hadn't decided yet. We're probably not going anywhere for a couple of days—I want to be able to fight if we run into something nasty. After that, we'll probably wander around for a while. Given that both most dragons and most Mazoku would like to see us dead, it isn't really safe for us to settle in one place for too long." 

"Why were you looking for me, anyway?" I directed this question mostly at Jillas. 

The fox-man jerked his muzzle up. "Had to talk to you. It's important." 

I raised my eyebrows. 

"In private," Jillas added firmly. "The fewer find out, the better." Then he frantically back-peddled when Gaav gave him a sharp look. "Oh, I didn't mean from _you_ , Gav-rik-sama! I know Val-sama tells you everything anyway." 

"Not quite _everything_ ," I said, with a smirk and a sly glance at my mate. "But I do take your point. Is the world going to end, or anything unpleasant like that, if we finish breakfast first, though?" 

Jillas shook his head. "'S important, but I don't think 's _urgent_ , if you get what I mean." 

"Good," I said. "Now pass that jam." 

"You got a love letter for him or something?" Erig asked Jillas with a smirk. 

"He wouldn't come all the way out here for that, dumbass," Foltig said. 

"That might depend on who it was from. A rich heiress . . . or heir, I guess . . ." 

"In _Mossport_?" Kel asked, sounding bewildered. 

"Erig's just being stupid on purpose," Hen-chan said. "He likes the attention it gets him." 

Erig grinned. "Well, I was in the middle of eight children—unless I acted up, no one even remembered my name most of the time. I figured making dumb jokes was better than painting the mayor's poodle blue. That was what my next-youngest sister did. They never did figure out it was her, though." 

"That was _Gerta_?" Foltig said with surprise. "You've got to be kidding me." 

"Saw her sneaking the can of blue paint back into the shed," Erig said solemnly. "She had some on her hands, too, so it wasn't just that she'd found it somewhere. They had to shave the poodle, afterwards," he added. 

I wiped the last of the egg yolk off my plate with the tag end of my toast. "Look, this should do for our part of the bill." I slapped half-a-dozen bronze pieces down on the table. "I need to go see if we can rent the inn's bathing area for an hour or so. We both reek." 

"Oh-ho! A whole hour?" 

"Get your mind out of the gutter already, Erig," Foltig said, running a hand over his shaven scalp. 

"Like you wouldn't like to join me there," Erig retorted good-naturedly. 

When we got the rental arranged, Jillas followed us out of the common room. The bathhouse, really more of a shack, was located behind the inn, and I stopped not far outside the back door. Gaav stopped too, leaning against the wall of the inn and watching. 

"There doesn't seem to be anyone nearby," I said. "Now, what was so important that you had to come all the way out here in your condition to tell me about it? Is something wrong with Filia?" 

The old fox shook his head. "It was a close thing, though, Valgaav-sama. She nearly . . . well . . ." 

His eye was starting to tear up. I wanted to growl with exasperation. Instead, I forced myself to say, "Just begin at the beginning. What happened first?" 

Gaav grinned, probably remembering talking a nervous dragon through his first few reports in much the same way. 

"She ran across some Mazoku. In the market, down by the docks. Strangers, not that Xellos." 

"And she blew up," I said. Of course she had. This was Filia. Things couldn't have happened any other way. 

"What else?" Jillas asked with a crooked smile. "But it wasn't . . . they weren't kind, these ones, and she was all alone . . ." 

"I don't need a blow-by-blow of the battle," I growled. "How did it end?" 

"That Xellos . . . he came . . . and killed'em." 

" _He_ killed them?" Gaav repeated sharply. "Did he mention who they served?" 

Jillas flinched and drew back, shaking his head. "Nothing like that, Gaav-sama. He did say something 'bout leftovers, though, and I don't think he meant the hambone from last Valwinsday." 

"Do you remember what he said exactly?" I asked. 

"Mmh . . . Something 'bout 'If those leftovers keep turning up—' Then Filia-sama swatted at him with her mace, so I didn't get to hear the rest." 

"What did they look like?" There had to be _some_ useful tidbit of information . . . but Jillas was already shaking his head. 

"They had hoods and long robes, so I didn't get a good look, either. Thing is, I don't think they were the first ones to come through. Filia-sama's been really awful lately." 

"Damn," I muttered. Fragmentary, useless information. Almost worse than nothing. "One last question: why did you bring Kel with you?" 

The fox shrugged. "He's been acting weird since a few months after you left. When his father heard I was leaving to look for you, he just about pushed his son on me, and I figured, since I knew you were friends, it couldn't hurt to bring him. I'm getting a bit old to travel by myself." 

"How has he been acting weird?" 

"Secretive. I think. It isn't like I've normally got much to do with him." 

Well, Kel hadn't had many other friends besides hatchling-me. Actually, the only other person outside his family that I'd ever seen him associate with was the owner of that tiny magic shop down by the docks. I could see how his family might have mistaken his withdrawal for secretiveness. 

"I think he wants to talk to you privately, too," Jillas added. "'M just not sure what about. He's been very quiet." 

_Oh, hell._ I didn't want to have to deal with some kind of weirdness on Kel's part right now. Looking back on it, I almost wondered if he'd been thinking of trying to court me, or something. It wasn't like he'd ever shown more than superficial interest in any of the girls at our school . . . but . . . 

"Let's go get that bath, little dragon. We can think while we're cleaning up." 

I nodded, knowing that he was right. 

The "bathhouse" contained a single tin bathtub that I think might have been used for dipping sheep from time to time. At least it was big. I ignored the buckets and brazier intended to haul and heat water and cast Aqua Create to fill the tub, then tossed a low-level Fireball into it. 

"What do you think?" I asked Gaav as I helped him with his shirt. 

"That we might have saved ourselves a lot of fucking trouble if we'd held off on bandaging this mess until afterwards." 

"That isn't what I meant." 

"I know." He sighed, beginning to unwind the long strip of cotton wrapped around his shoulder and ribs. "And the answer is that I'm not sure. 'Leftovers' . . . probably leftover Mazoku, given the rest of what the fox said, but leftover from what? They couldn't be ours after all this time, and they aren't likely to be Phibby's, either. Unless some of them took another master, then broke away again . . . fucking difficult to do, though. And why now? It can't be about me—the timing's wrong. Could be about you, I guess, but even then it seems weird. Or Xellos could be trying to cover for some kind of mess starting up between Zelas, Dolly, and Icicle-Ass, but I doubt it. Even Dynast isn't stupid enough to court destruction that way. If the Dragon Gods finally yank their heads out of their asses and do something, and my fucking siblings are fighting among themselves when they do it, it would be instant death for the Mazoku side." 

"Any number of Hellmaster's servants could have been in hiding since his death." I pulled off my shirt too, and dropped it on the floor. The only cleaning spell I knew couldn't be used on people without removing skin along with the dirt, but applying it to laundry was safe enough. I'd handle that later, though. Still, it was a shame that it would take a while for the Mazoku power now within me to build up to the level where I could actually use it. The difference was immense, kind of like having a hose you could use to spray water wherever you wanted at a moment's notice instead of having to painstakingly hand-craft a bucket to haul the liquid in every time you wanted tea. 

My mate shook his head. "You know the problem with that, little dragon—or if not, you're bright enough to work it out." 

I scowled. Yes, I knew. For the sake of safety, the more powerful Mazoku imprinted the lesser ones that they created with the need to belong to a master. I didn't have it because my mind had always been that of a dragon no matter what power lurked under my skin, and Gaav had broken free from it after Ragradia had cursed him with a soul, but most Mazoku couldn't live outside a hierarchy. 

"They could have chosen a non-Mazoku master," I said. 

"Mmm. In theory. It's never been done, though, and I doubt any of Phibby's bunch have the fucking brains to work it out." 

"If one of them got desperate enough . . ." 

Another headshake. "Or did it more or less by accident, sure, but it's still fucking unlikely. I can't rule it out until we know more, though. You've still got too many clothes on, little dragon." 

I sighed and dropped my pants. Once he changed the subject like that, it was better to just go along. He'd change it back when he was damned good and ready. "Think the tub's big enough for both of us?" 

"It'll be a bit of a squeeze if we both want to stretch out, but yeah." 

"Good—I don't want to sit on the edge while I wash your back." 

Bushy eyebrows rose. "And who said you're doing that?" 

I snorted. "If you want to do it for yourself when your shoulder's healed, go ahead. In the meanwhile, I'd prefer that you didn't accidentally tear yourself in two." 

"Fucking pushy dragon." His grumbling was good-natured, though. I could tell. "I hope you brought some soap." 

We ended up standing for most of the initial wash, actually, using the buckets to rinse soap off. The water was looking pretty dingy by the time we were clean, but at least we both smelled lemony-fresh. 

We emptied the bath and refilled it then, and settled in for a soak with me sitting in my mate's lap and leaning back against his chest. 

"What happened to Rashatt?" Gaav asked suddenly. 

"I don't know," I admitted. "Not exactly, anyway. About a month after you . . . fell out of the picture . . . I ran into Xellos, who was keeping company with Lina Inverse again. He mentioned in passing that I was the last of your servants left. I assumed that meant Rashatt and Raltaak were both dead along with the rest. There were rumours of one of them having joined up with Hellmaster for a while, but that shouldn't have saved him in the long run." 

My mate grunted. "Even if the slimy cone isn't reliable, it seems like an odd thing for him to pick to mess with your head about. Still, he's not omniscient." 

"Why Rashatt?" 

"Because Raltaak never gave a flying fuck about you one way or the other, little dragon. Think about it: why send a bunch of minions to that one town in particular? To investigate why Xellos keeps popping in? That wouldn't have taken long, even for the worst fucking wastes of astral energy the Mazoku race has ever produced. If they've kept coming back often enough to make that dragon wench grumpy all the time, it's because they're looking for something that they can't find. Unless there's something _else_ associated with the place that would interest them, I'd bet they're looking for you." 

I had to admit that it fit. Xellos would have known enough to question Jillas, the one person in Mossport who had known where I was all along, if he wanted to find me. That meant it wasn't likely to be the surviving Dark Lords looking. 

"If we're lucky, it's just some stupid necromancer who wants ancient dragon feathers for a spell." In which case I would shove them down his throat when we found him. 

"If we're lucky, we'll have another day or two before they show up on our fucking doorstep." 

"Yeah." Jillas and Kel hadn't been taking any precautions against being followed, as far as I knew. That meant that they almost certainly had been. "How do you want to handle that?" 

"Reading my mind, little dragon? I want to keep a low profile for the time being." 

"So I'm the first line of defense." _And we try not to leave any survivors._

When we left the bathhouse, they were all waiting for us—the three mercenaries spread around the backyard of the inn, scanning the area as though they expected Xellos to jump out at them, Jillas sitting on the back steps with his cane propped beside him, and Kel standing in the middle of the open space, staring off at nothing. 

"Don't you have somewhere you need to be?" I asked, and tasted their guilt. 

Hen-chan cleared his throat. "Well . . . we figured we would all be going in the same direction for at least the first day or so after we left here, and we thought we might all travel together. Unless you're going to settle here for a while, that is." 

_Damn._ I exchanged glances with Gaav, who shrugged and said, "It's going to be a couple more days before I'm healed up enough to travel." He gestured to his sling for emphasis. 

Hen-chan blinked. "But Val-san says he can cast Resurrection . . ." 

"White magic doesn't work properly on me," my mate replied. "I have to wait it out." 

"Plus, I need to buy some stuff," I added. "And burn my robes." 

"Burn your—but _why_?" Hen-chan was horrified. _Roast pork, with a hint of garlic and oregano._ I licked my lips. I'd forgotten what it was like, when just being around humans was like sitting down at a banquet table. 

It's a very rare crowd that a Mazoku can't feed off of. Get more than two or three people together and there's always someone who's irritated, anxious, or insecure. 

"Because I've been promising myself for years that I would. I was only in the Guild because I needed their damned library, and technically my membership was invalid anyway, since I lied about my age and species. From now on, I intend to stay as far away from them as possible. If they figure out what I am, there's likely to be at least one sorcerer who'll want to render me down for parts." 

"But that would be murder!" Hen-chan's horror really was delicious. I hoped my mate was getting maximum benefit from it. 

"Do you think they'd _care_?" How could this kid have survived this long when he was this naive? 

Foltig chuckled. "Don't worry—we'll protect you. After all, you still owe us a thousand gold in hazard pay." 

"I suppose we _will_ be travelling with you until we get to someone we can hand the fucking money over to, then," my mate grumbled. "There's nothing worse for chasing after you than debt collectors, and having to stop and fry one every few days makes it difficult to keep a low profile." 

"We weren't gonna leave today or tomorrow anyway," Erig said. "They're throwing a festival here tomorrow, and I don't want to miss it." 

_Damn, that's all we need._ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the corner of Gaav's mouth twitch in irritation. But humans were supposed to _like_ festivals, and we needed to keep a low profile for at least a little while longer . . . 

"Or are you thinking it might interrupt your _quality_ time?" Erig asked with a leer. 

"You wouldn't recognize quality time if it bit you on the ass," his cousin retorted. 

"Hey! I got some more recently than you!" 

Foltig snorted. "With your _hand_ , maybe!" 

I hid my face in my hand for just a second. _If I have to take any more of this, I'm going to strangle the both of them._ I was just about grinding my teeth, reminding myself continuously of the need to keep a low profile. 

"Time to go back, I think, little dragon." A big hand found my shoulder and began to steer me around the side of the inn. 

I thought we'd made our escape clean until Kel and Hen-chan fell in behind us. 

"What do you two want?" I growled over my shoulder. 

"We were just curious about where you're staying," Hen-chan said. 

It was going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Erig is sharper than he looks. And white magic isn't nearly as useful as it looks. ;)


	13. Chapter 13

Even on the third day in a row that I woke cuddled against his chest, it felt too wonderful to be real. Every moment we spent together was precious to me, and would remain so for a long time to come. 

_Love you. Want you. Need you._

I twisted my body, trying to roll over without moving away from him. He had a nice piece of morning wood, and so did I, and I was going to take advantage of both. 

I whispered the Power Words to invoke the lubrication spell, and adjusted us so that the tip of his cock was trapped between my ass cheeks. Then I began to push back. _Oh, fuck . . ._ I doubted I'd ever be able to get enough of the sensation of being filled by him, the head of his cock scraping over my prostate and sending a delicious shock through my body that made me groan involuntarily. 

There was a chuckle behind me. "Horny little dragon. You should have woken me up." 

"I thought you liked waking up this way," I retorted, feeling him take over and push the rest of the way in. 

"Mmm. Well, I'm of two minds, really. I _do_ like waking up this way, but I also want to remember every fucking minute that I spend with you. I took you for granted for too long." 

"I can understand that . . ." I'd taken him for granted too: that as a Dark Lord, he was invincible and would always be there. That I was done with loss, and terror, and the empty dark. And so, when Hellmaster had taken him away, I'd had even fewer defenses than I might have, otherwise. 

"Copper for your thoughts?" 

"They're not worth that. Just fuck me. Make me forget . . ." 

"Of course." 

He withdrew halfway and thrust in again, hard, and my voice rang from the rafters. I had missed this so much—not just the sex, but the feeling of being able to let go, to trust myself to him and not have to be in charge, or think or plan or worry. Just for a little while, in the space between these blankets, I could pretend that the world consisted only of the two of us. 

"You're thinking again," he whispered in my ear as his hand meandered down my chest, stopping briefly so that he could circle around a nipple, just teasing the central nub of flesh with the lightest of touches. 

"Perhaps you're not trying hard enough," I retorted, smirking. 

"Challenging me, little dragon?" 

"And what if I am?" 

"Then you're going to lose." The throaty growl in his voice sent a pleasant shudder through me as his hand crept lower. 

"As though that ever kept me from fighting." 

Gaav chuckled. "True enough." The jolt of pleasure as his hand curled around my cock blanked out anything else he might have said. I had to fight to keep my wings from popping out and slamming him in the chest as he began to stroke me in time with his thrusts. And he wasn't just touching me on the physical, either. I could feel the phantom grip of fangs on the back of my neck as his true body sought pleasure of me on the astral plane, the only place we could join in our proper forms. _Moreharderplease . . ._

He shifted tactics, curling his fingers around the shaft of my cock and circling the sensitive head with his thumb. I would swear that the roar that tore itself from my throat then shook the building, but maybe it was just the sudden helpless wave of pleasure as I came that shook me. My body clenched around his, and I felt him thrust even harder, driving for his own resolution now. He gave another deep, throaty, satisfied growl as he came, and I shivered as I felt the Mazoku part of me hungrily draw the power from his seed, pulling it into me. 

As we lay spooned together with his cock slowly softening inside me, I closed my eyes and let myself rest in the moment, drinking in the warmth of his body against and inside mine, and the solidity of his astral self. For the first time in a long time, I felt myself relax completely, all the tension bleeding out of me. Wholeness. And a sense of purpose came along with it. 

I was never going to lose him again, because I would do anything I could to protect him. If he fell a second time, then I would fall with him, after giving my all to save us both. 

A sudden wave of his power flowed over me, drawing a soft sound of contentment from me as it began to nurture the dark energies I bore. Long, slow, rippling pulses of Mazoku power washing through my body, directed with a skill that kept the dragon side of me from raising its hackles. 

"You seem to be adapting pretty well, so I'm going to set up a link to feed you more power a little bit at a time," he said. "Make sure you tell me if it starts to hurt. I don't want to fuck things up this time." 

"I understand." How many different levels of bonds were there between us now? I'd lost count somewhere along the way. 

The link dug in somewhere behind my breastbone, allowing a tiny trickle of power to pass between us. 

I groaned a little as he pulled his cock out of me and sat up, leaving me feeling cold and bereft, but it wouldn't have felt right to complain. Instead I burrowed deeper between the blankets, watching as he flexed his arm, testing the shoulder. 

"Feels like the muscle's mostly back," he said. "I'll keep it bandaged for today, though. Splitting in half in the middle of whatever festival your friends intend to drag us to would be fucking embarrassing." 

"They're not my friends." Friendship required trust, and there was a limit to how much of that I could offer when my life was deeply intertwined with a Dark Lord's. If they found out who Gaav really was, how would they react? I could imagine a number of scenarios, and the most benign had them turning their backs on me in disgust. "Jillas, maybe. Not the others." 

"Your camouflage, then. They'll do well enough for that, for a while." 

He wiped himself clean with a handful of rags, then stood up and walked over to where we'd left his coat and sword on the first day, when I'd moved them so that I could scrub the remains of the magic circle off the floor. He searched through the folds of yellow fabric until he came up with a rounded object: the heavy steel torc he normally wore around his neck. He ran his thumb slowly around the inside of it, checking to make sure the spell it held was intact, before he put it on. 

The spell on the torc generated the astral equivalent of fog, a natural phenomenon on that plane that made things inside it difficult to detect from any distance. It was the reason he'd managed to hide from the other Dark Lords for so long: they couldn't spare the manpower to check every one of the tens of thousands of astral fogbanks in the world. It blanketed the equivalent of several square miles, so he'd been in range of it for the past few days even when we'd gone down to the inn, but the concealment effect was strongest in the middle. That he felt it necessary to wear the torc now suggested that his power was completely recovered. 

Only when it was in place did he get dressed. After stomping into his boots, he picked up the long golden-yellow coat and began to seal the slice in it shut with a dab of power, matching the edges of the fabric meticulously. I shook my head, amused. 

His sword harness went on over the coat, and I saw him shrug his shoulders—both of them—several times to settle it comfortably. 

"You might want to get up and get dressed, little dragon, just in case someone decides to turn up early." 

I imagined being caught naked and sticky from sex by Erig, and shuddered. Fine, then. Wipe myself off and . . . what had I done with my pants . . . ? 

A few minutes later, I finished dressing by belting on my sword, since armed-and-dangerous seemed to be today's suggested look, and discovered that my mate had gone outside. He hadn't gone all that far—I could feel him—so I sauntered casually out the door rather than running or trying to teleport, and found him with his sword drawn, swinging at the air. 

When he noticed me standing there watching, though, he stopped, raising the sword to rest against his shoulder, and turned to face me. 

"When's the last time you had some practice, little dragon?" he asked. 

"With someone I could safely use my full strength against? Years." Really, the last time had been with Gourry. Sparring with a human who lacked his supernatural skill meant I had to be careful not to shatter bone with the force of my swings. 

Gaav grinned. "Then you're overdue." 

"I agree, actually." I pulled my sword from its scabbard, then brought it up into a guard position. 

We began the sparring match without drawing on our powers at all, keeping our feet on the ground and moving at no more than human speed, without teleportation or other tricks. I was soon at a disadvantage: Gaav was stronger, more skilled, and had a longer reach. Plus, he'd taught me everything I knew about weapons. Meaning that I didn't know a single trick that he didn't. 

I knew he was playing with me, and I tolerated it. Still, I was the first one to drop the pretense of human limitations, striking out with blurring speed. My mate's grin widened as he blocked me, and the real fight was on. 

We both knew better than to directly use attack magic, since we didn't want to blast any large craters in the landscape. Still, there are a lot of useful things you can do with magic even if you don't want to blast your opponent with it. Flight, teleportation, and poking one's weapon through the astral were all within acceptable limits. 

In the end, though, I fell for a beautifully-timed piece of mundane swordsmanship that involved Gaav knocking my blade aside with the bell guard of his while snaking a thrust straight at my eyes. I dodged it with a curse, but that just made me even more embarrassed when I felt the point of his sword at my throat and realized it had been a feint. 

"Yield," I said, lowering my own blade. 

There was a smattering of applause from off to the left. I spun, lifting my weapon back to a guard position. 

"Whoa," Erig said, "touchy!" 

"I never knew you were so good at that, Val." There was something wrong with Kel's expression as he spoke, though. 

Foltig and Hen-chan said nothing, although the young mage had joined in the applause. 

"Don't let it go to your head, little dragon. You're rusty. I shouldn't have caught you out that way." 

"Agreed," I said. "I also need a better weapon." 

"They don't get any better," Kel snapped, jerking his chin up. 

I rolled my eyes—trust him to defend his father's smithing skills! "This is a really good piece of sharpened steel, but I'm going to need more than that. You can't fight Mazoku with an ordinary sword, even if it's the best one ever made, and I'm not a good enough sorcerer to get the level of enchantment I'm going to need into a steel sword without accidentally blowing it up. It's easier to start without a physical substrate, or so I understand." It needed more power as well, but I didn't expect that to be a problem. 

"You've never done it before?" Kel asked. 

I shrugged. "I never needed to." And really, if it had only been lesser Mazoku we needed to fight against, my bare talons would have been good enough. If Xellos turned up, on the other hand . . . I'd barely beaten him last time, and that had been partly because of Ragud Mezegis, which I no longer had. "What are you doing here this early, anyway? Surely the festival isn't already open?" 

Erig snickered. "You're a city boy, aren't you? It started at dawn." 

I scowled. "There are no dragon cities, idiot. But dragons don't have the kind of festivals you humans do anyway." 

"So what kind do you have?" 

I gave him a cold glare. "In the case of my clan, it's 'did you have'. Which is why I'm not fucking interested in talking about it." 

Erig did have the grace to wince. "Whups. Sorry. Forgot." 

Gaav took a half-step closer to me and put his arm around my waist. I leaned into his touch, forcing a crooked smile. 

"At least the festival isn't likely to bring back bad memories," I said. "And I don't suppose you'll leave us in peace until we spend at least a little time there. So let's go. Did anyone ever find out what they're celebrating?" 

"The birth of some local mucky-muck a few centuries back," Foltig said with a shrug. "The people I talked to didn't even remember the name." 

"So just an excuse to get drunk and have a good time," Gaav said, with a grin. "I can live with that." 

"Do you remember what happened the last time you got drunk at a festival?" I asked him. 

"Now I'm curious," Kel put in as we started down the road to the village. "What happened?" 

I smirked. "Two words: cross-dressing contest. And he won, too." 

"Ugh. I _had_ forgotten that. Fuck it all." 

"Well, _I_ thought you looked cute in that short skirt. And the pig-tails." 

" _Val_ . . . " 

He wasn't really angry, though—his eyes hadn't gotten cold the way I knew they did when that happened. Equal parts irritated and amused at my cheekiness, probably. Annoying that his were the only emotions that I couldn't taste. 

"Just be glad it was before the invention of photography," I said, and dodged the very slow and non-serious swing of his fist. "And that everyone else was just as drunk as we were." 

"You know, that really is too much information," Foltig said, but he was grinning. Everyone was. 

"Where's Jillas, by the way?" I asked. 

"Said that his leg was acting up and he was gonna spend the morning in bed," Erig reported. 

"I'm kind of surprised he made it this far without a rest," Hen-chan added. "I mean, when I first got on the road, I hurt like hell every night. When we first met Jillas-san, I didn't think he was going to make it ten miles, but he sure showed us. How old is he, anyway?" 

"Just under a hundred," I said, and the three mercenaries' jaws dropped. 

"Fuck me," Erig muttered, sounding awed. "I figured . . . sixty, maybe seventy . . . but a _hundred_? I didn't think beastmen could get that old." 

"It's unusual, but he's had the support of a skilled white-magic caster," I said, and bit down on my lower lip before I could add, _I don't think he's going to last much longer._ Jillas was strong in his own way, but we all have our limits and he couldn't be more than a few years from reaching his. 

The locals really must have gotten started on setting things up in the village square, if not yesterday, then at least very early this morning. Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to get all those stalls up. I could count two dozen at a casual glance, and there were probably more that I'd missed. 

"Every peddler and craftsman in the area converges on this town for Marshfest, or at least that's what they told us," Hen-chan said with a shy smile, looking from me to Gaav. His emotions were . . . odd, some subtle flavour I wasn't familiar with. "There's food, clothes, trinkets . . . a bit of everything. And games, too." 

"Exploring, were you?" I said. 

The young mage nodded. 

"Then you can tell us where to find some breakfast." Gaav's tone was even enough, but his eyes had narrowed a bit, and his body was tense. 

Something was wrong, but I couldn't see it. 

I raised my eyebrows in my mate's direction. 

"Notice anything odd about the woman who just passed us?" was all he said. 

"Beyond the fact that her hair was even spikier than mine? Not a damned thing." But I extended my astral senses to check on her. 

There was a wisp of Mazoku power clinging to her. Just the tiniest bit, so little that I couldn't tell what Mazoku it had come from and I would have thought it wasn't possible to _do_ anything with it, but definitely there. 

_I don't know why that's there, but it isn't good._

I gave Gaav a grim look and nodded fractionally. _You're not hallucinating. Something's wrong._

"Maybe it's just me," my mate said, for the benefit of Kel and Hen-chan and the others . . . but his eyes told quite a different story. 

"Huh. Well, we'll leave you guys to hallucinate on your own for a bit," said Foltig. "Take care of the brats for us. I have a young lady to chat up!" 

Kel scowled. "Brats? I'll have you know that I'm older than you and Erig put together!" 

"Okay, grandpa, then don't do anything I wouldn't!" Erig said cheerfully. 

"That covers a lot of territory," Hen-chan shot back . . . but the cousins were already wandering off, leaving us with Kel and the young mage. 

The woman we'd noticed earlier wasn't the only one of her kind. Now that I was alert to the possibility, I spotted others carrying the same hint of taint. More women than men. Did that mean something? 

We bought sausages on buns and ate as we wandered among the stalls, finding food, clothing, leatherwork, and a stall manned by frogmen who were selling medicines made from ingredients gathered in the swamp. There were peddlers from outside the area too, laying out their wares on blankets in a small open area between the stalls and the more elaborate apparatus set up for some of the games. 

I felt a flash of slightly stronger Mazoku power coming from the direction of the blankets, but Kel grabbed me by the hand and dragged me over toward the "test your strength" game. 

"C'mon, Val! You know you can win at this thing!" 

"Except that it wouldn't be fair for me to try," I pointed out, digging in my heels. "I have a slight advantage over normal humans, you know. Besides, what would I do with a life-sized plush garm?" 

"Does it matter?" 

"You could sell it," Hen-chan put in. "Or give it away, or use it for target practice for a fireball spell." 

"Not a chance," I said, but I felt the corners of my mouth turn up. It was nice to see the two of them getting along. 

"What about you, er, Gavrik-san?" 

"I don't exactly need a plush garm either," my mate rumbled. "I mean, who the fuck would want it? It isn't like we have kids." 

"Nephews or nieces?" Kel suggested. 

Gaav snorted. "For your information, elf-brat, if one of my relatives was on fire, not only would I not bother pissing on him to put it out, I'd go buy some marshmallows so that I could roast them over the flames. Pretty much everyone in my family is an even bigger asshole than I am. Or did you miss the part about them wanting to kill me?" 

"Um," Kel replied. "I . . . kinda . . . Don't you have a human family somewhere?" 

"If I had had, they'd all be dead of old age by now." 

Kel blinked several times. "Oh." 

I touched my mate's arm. "Go easy on him. He's just a kid." 

"It isn't like you to ask me to be merciful, little dragon." 

I shrugged. "He did his best to stand by me. I owe him something for that. Now, quit acting like a jealous alpha male." 

"Jealous? Is that what you think I am?" 

"Jealous," I confirmed. "And possessive as hell." 

I wasn't at all surprised when that got a chuckle from him. Kel, on the other hand, was staring at us as though we'd both reverted to our true forms right there in the middle of the festival and sat down to discuss the merits of lavender water versus rosewater for polishing one's scales. Hen-chan must have been getting used to us, because he just sighed and shook his head. 

"Let's save the games for later," I said. "Right now, I'm more interested in whether or not anyone is selling spiced chicken livers." 

Kel managed a crooked grin. "If you still like those, then I guess not everything has changed." 

From there, Gaav and I didn't have to do much conspiring to steer our little group over toward the blankets. The stuff laid out was a mixed lot, to say the least. Sandals, ribbons and lace, small metal goods like knives and needles. One guy's stock I was pretty sure had been scavenged off corpses somewhere. Another sold only seeds, hundreds of kinds, each in its own separate, labelled paper packet. The guy beside him sold mostly beads, with a similar arrangement, and I briefly imagined the chaos that would ensue if some accident caused both sets of paper packets to be mixed together. 

Near the edge of the group of peddlers there was a skinny young man about Hen-chan's age sitting beside a blanket covered with costume jewelry. Something shivered along my nerves as I looked at the glittering brass and glass. _Mazoku. Here._

Beside me, Gaav deliberately flared his power so that it would show more clearly through the astral mist, although given how close we were, the other Mazoku should have known we were there already. 

There was no response. No one attacked, no one ran, no one even spoke to us. My mate frowned deeply. He had to be just as puzzled as I was. 

Still scowling, he took a step forward. Now the youth guarding the blanket tried to scramble away, but Gaav grabbed him by the front of his shirt. 

"Hey!" Hen-chan said. "What are you doing?!" 

Kel was more direct, taking a step toward the two of them, his hand reaching for Gaav's arm. I blocked him. 

"Don't interfere. There's more going on here than you know," I warned them. 

"What the hell do you mean?" Hen-chan snapped. "He's just—" 

There was a loud _rrrrip!_ as Gaav tore the front of the peddler-boy's shirt open. 

A pendant around the boy's neck flared with red light. 

The jewelry on the blanket glittered with an echo of it. 

And everyone around us who bore one of those traces of Mazoku energy turned toward us with blank expressions on their faces. 

" _Fuck,_ " Gaav snarled, and grabbed the pendant and yanked, snapping the chain. There was a pulse of power through the astral, and all of the jewelry on the blanket puffed into dust, as did several items worn by the people who had been blankly staring at us . . . all of whom were now blinking at nothing and looking confused. 

My mate dropped the peddler-boy, who was looking as blank as everyone else, back on the ground, and opened his other hand to examine the pendant, which hadn't gone to dust like the rest. 

"Would one of you mind telling us just what the _fuck_ is going on?" Hen-chan asked. 

"The jewelry he was selling was tainted by Mazoku power and the pendant was some kind of controller," I said. "As for what the purpose was and why he ended up here, I'm hoping it was just a coincidence." 

"M-Mazoku?" came a shaky voice from down around knee level. "I don't understand. W-where am I? The last thing I remember, I was in Gyria City . . ." 

I exchanged looks with Gaav, who made a little go-ahead gesture. 

"All right then," I said. "Let's start with the basics. What's your name?" 

"Ryan." 

"You're a peddler?" 

The youth blinked and shook his head. "I'm a clerk! I . . . what . . . Oh, man, my feet hurt . . ." 

I sighed. "What's the last thing you remember? You were in Gyria City, and . . ." 

"I was on my way home for supper. I wasn't looking where I was going, and I ran into someone wearing a hooded cape. His eyes glowed and I . . . I don't remember anything else after that." 

"The man with the cape and the glowing eyes—do you remember anything about him? Was he tall? Short? Skinny or fat?" I was grasping at straws, and I knew it. Many Mazoku didn't even have constant forms, so a physical description was likely to be less than useful. 

Ryan swallowed visibly. "Big, that's what I remember—like your friend there, although not quite _that_ big." He gestured at Gaav. "But tall, and muscular." 

"One other question," my mate rumbled. "Do you recognize this?" He held out the pendant, and I got my first clear look at it. Cast from brass, it was in the shape of a broken sword, and little red glass insets gave the impression that it was weeping blood. Ominous. 

"Never seen it in my life before. Why?" 

"You were wearing it," I told him. "It looks like you were being controlled by a spell. Hen-chan, Kel, can you look after him for a while? Explain where he is, and get him a Recovery spell for his feet—they're probably blistered." 

With the tag-alongs occupied, Gaav and I were able to move quietly aside for a more private conversation. 

"Gyria City," I mused aloud. 

My mate grunted. "There's probably nothing left there by now, but . . ." 

"But you still want to check," I finished. "So do I, if that helps." 

Gaav frowned down at the talisman. "I don't know if you caught it, but the spell originally seems to have been for spying and not mind control—that was just a defense mechanism." 

"So someone was setting up a network? Working for a human, maybe?" 

"Maybe, but . . . well, you have a look at this, little dragon." He offered me the talisman. "Tell me who you think made it." 

I tasted the fragment of power bound to it—enough, here, for me to be able to pick up the maker's signature. 

_That doesn't make any sense._

Frowning, I tested it again, just to make sure the first result hadn't been a figment of my imagination. The conclusion was inescapable. 

"I don't recognize the signature specifically," I said. "But it has to belong to one of your descendants." 

"What frightens me is that I don't recognize who made it either," Gaav said grimly. "And I can't trace the line of descent past me, through Rashatt or Raltaak or whoever. There might be enough beer in the world to make me throw a spawn by accident, but I can't see there being enough to make me _forget_ about it. But it looks like that's exactly what I did. Somehow." 

I shook my head. "There has to be a better explanation. And we'll find it." 

I just didn't have any idea what kind of better explanation there could be. And judging from the expression on Gaav's face, I had a feeling he didn't either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the action plot is beginning to thicken up again. And I just couldn't resist the opportunity to put in a little reference to that infamous eyecatch. ;)


	14. Chapter 14

It takes about two days to get from Loak to Marshton, on foot at a comfortable pace. It takes three to follow the path in the reverse direction, because Loak sits at a higher elevation, in the foothills of the Kataarts. Hacked into the side of those hills is a marble quarry that's responsible for both the town's wealth and the main road passing through it being wide, flat, and paved all the way up to the north coast. Eight-mule teams drag huge wagons bearing chunks of rock up to the nearest harbour, where they're loaded onto ships to be carried around the point of Lyzeille, or, during the summer, past the northern jut of the Kataarts. And there was a good-sized market inside the country, too. The larger civil buildings in Gyria City are all faced with stone from Loak. 

I know all of this because Jillas and Ryan, who had attached himself to us (no thanks to Hen-chan, who was the one who had told him we were headed for Gyria City) hitched a ride on a farmer's hay wagon for the last ten miles or so, and the man wouldn't stop _talking_. He and Erig chattered nonstop, while the rest of us tried hard not to listen. By the end of it, I was wishing we'd just teleported directly to Gyria City and damn the risk of attracting attention, and I would bet that Gaav was thinking along the same lines, although he didn't actually say so. 

I also considered various creative methods of murdering the farmer and what to do with his tongue afterwards. Having run with Mazoku for so many years, I had enough ideas to keep me occupied for a couple of hours. Slicing up the farmer's tongue and feeding it to Erig—raw—became a major feature of those fantasies. 

We finally parted ways with the farmer when he turned up a side street on the edge of town to take his cargo to one of the mule stables, where it would be used as feed. Jillas, at least, seemed refreshed when he hopped down from the wagon-bed, tough old fox that he was. It was Ryan who was walking funny, trying to limp on both feet. The soles of his shoes, intended for town wear, were almost worn through. 

"Are we going to stop here?" the unfortunate clerk asked. He wasn't—quite—whining. 

"At the other end of town," I said. "The inns are all clumped together by the main road. I'd prefer to take advantage of them while we can." I glanced at Gaav, who shrugged. 

"I don't see why we shouldn't stop," he said mildly. "We're already past the point where we'd be able to avoid being noticed, so we'd attract more attention by _not_ stopping. That fucking farmer loves the sound of his own voice so much, he'll be talking about us for _weeks_ , even if he doesn't have much to say." 

"I figured it was better to keep him talking about useless crap," Erig said. "They don't usually ask questions about your business that way." 

I was starting to think that Erig was much sharper than he often chose to appear. 

"And you could talk the hind leg off a donkey," Foltig said, grinning. "Well, cousin-mine, I'm thinking that perhaps Val and Gavrik should treat us to dinner in exchange for your heroic efforts at damage control . . ." 

"If it keeps you both quiet," I muttered, tallying the money I still had on me. 

We'd just reached the well-paved main road and turned down it when the sound of an explosion rocked the town and a column of light rose into the sky near where the inns should be. 

"What the hell was that?" Kel asked. 

"A fireball spell," Hen-chan said before I could. "I think. Casting one in the middle of a town, though—that's crazy! You could end up burning the whole place down!" 

"I can think of at least one person who wouldn't pay any attention to the collateral damage before it was too late," I said, exchanging a grim look with Gaav. 

Hen-chan blinked. "You can? _Who?_ " 

"Lina Inverse," my mate rumbled. " _Fuck._ That's all we need." 

"Do we go back?" I asked him. 

"Like hell! If she wants a rematch, we'll have a fucking rematch, and _this_ time there won't be any interruptions. I'm not going to run scared from that pint-sized nuisance." 

Jillas whimpered. Everyone else was staring at us. 

"I . . . take it there's some history," Foltig said after half a beat of silence. "None of our business, though." 

"Nice to know you've got some common sense," Gaav said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's go." 

When we got to the stretch of road near the inns, though, there were no damaged buildings (although the pavement and the stone walls flanking it were scorched over a good-sized area) and the shrill voice screaming at the top of its lungs wasn't Lina's. 

"How can you _not_ serve 'people like us'! Our money's just as good as anyone else's, isn't it?!" 

"I told you, _no pets!_ " 

" _I'm not a pet!_ " The shrill voice went all the way up into operatic soprano for that. "Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows—" 

I heard Gaav swear in Draconic as I teleported—not that I could see what was going on past all the people who had come to gawk at the shouting match, but I figured that popping in above the red glow of the beginning Dragon Slave and tackling whoever was responsible before they could complete it would keep any inns from being blown up before we could get a night's sleep in an actual bed for a change. 

"Buried in the— _yiiii!_ " 

It was the most uncomfortable landing I had ever made, even worse than crash-landing in the desert with a bunch of holes in my hide. It felt like I'd smashed into a bunch of cloth-covered rocks . . . except for my right elbow, which was pinning something soft and twitching to the charred surface of the road. 

" _Let me go!_ " 

It was . . . a stuffed animal. An ugly stuffed animal with a zipper on its stomach and a pair of ears that seemed to act like arms. An ugly stuffed animal that was moving on its own and yelling at me in a high-pitched child's voice. 

" . . . I agree," said a low voice coming from the hard, lumpy figure underneath me. "This is uncomfortable." Familiar voice, and, now that I took a better look, familiar clothing, although the face was hidden by a mask and an overhanging hood . . . 

"Zelgadis Greywords." I hadn't seen him in a very long time, but he wasn't exactly easy to mistake. 

"Who . . . ?" Stony limbs jerked . . . and the world darkened around us as space-time twisted. We were left in a quiet, empty shadow of the main highway through Loak, occupied by only four people. Assuming that the squishy thing trying to wriggle out from under my elbow was a person and not some kind of elaborate golem. 

I rolled off the chimera and grabbed the stuffed toy. It tried to dodge, but I let my arm scale over and lengthen, and caught it between my talons anyway. "Try to cast another Dragon Slave and I'll feed you your ears," I warned it. 

"Um," it said, wide-eyed. "Just who are you, exactly?" 

Zelgadis, in the meanwhile, was picking himself up off the ground. "You're Val? Or . . ." 

"Let's just say that my memory's fully intact," I said. "And I'm not here alone." 

"We figured that having this conversation privately was better than blowing up half the fucking town, which was what probably would have happened otherwise," my mate added. 

Zelgadis' head snapped up, and his eyes went round. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" 

Gaav chuckled. "Maybe you should have checked the body. I'm not that easy to kill, as my asshole brother should have remembered." Then his expression went hard. "The point is, it's just coincidence that we met up here. I don't have any particular reason to kill you . . . but I also don't have any particular reason not to, beyond the fact that I'm trying not to draw too much attention just yet. So it's safer for everyone if you don't cause me any trouble." 

"Unlike Lina, I don't usually rush into things," the chimera pointed out. "Of course, I'm assuming you're not still after her. If you are . . ." 

My mate shook his head. "The only reason I was interested in her at all was because Phibby was. Since his plans didn't work out, the smartest thing for me to do is ignore her until she goes away. Attacking her again would just be a recipe for more headaches." 

"Lina won't ever just go away!" the stuffed animal said, twisting against my grip. "Zel, who are these guys? This is crazy!" 

Zelgadis sighed. "The tall one in the trenchcoat is Maryuuoh Gaav. The one holding your ears is Valgaav." 

The plush animal's eyes went round as saucers. "A Dark Lord . . . and the guy who just about destroyed the world . . . This isn't good, is it?" _Nervous, but not afraid. It's still too angry for real fear._

"Well, it could be worse," the chimera said. "They seem to be acting pretty reasonable at the moment. More than I would have expected, really." 

"Mostly because you're not worth fighting," my mate said with a nasty grin. "And we do have some enemies in common, in the form of the other high-level Mazoku. If you're going to be a pain in someone's ass, I'd rather it be Zelas' than mine." 

"Well, if you're going to be nice to us, could you get your friend to let me go?" the stuffed animal asked, trying to twist its way out from between my talons again. 

Gaav snorted. "What's with that thing, anyway? A human soul in a body like that . . . Is it one of Phibby's experiments?" 

"My name isn't 'that thing', it's Pokota!" 

Zelgadis shook his head. "It was something that Rezo did. Anyway, since his original body was destroyed, he's stuck like this now. Just like me." 

"Figures. Dear old Dad always was the one member of the family with a sense of humour even worse than Phibby's. Unless you count Xellos. It's okay, Val. Let him go." 

I gave Pokota one last shake. "Remember what I said," I warned him, then let him go. 

"Yeah, yeah, no more Dragon Slaves, right. Although I'm surprised you care." 

"We've spent the last several days camping out at the ass-end of nowhere, and we want a meal and a decent night's sleep in a proper bed before anyone blows up the town—what's so strange about that?" I grumbled. 

"But if your, uh, friend's a Dark Lord, couldn't he just conjure up an inn?" Pokota asked. 

"I could conjure up an entire palace with a five-star meal service and slaves to peel grapes for us, if I wanted to. Thing is, palaces popping up out of nowhere tend to draw attention, and that's what we don't want right now. Now, are you two going to keep your mouths shut and stay out of our way, or do I have to turn you into a small pile of ashes and a fucking ugly statue?" Gaav raised a bushy eyebrow for emphasis. 

"Well, _I_ certainly don't want to fight you, and if you wanted to hurt anyone here you probably just would have let Pokota blow up the town," Zelgadis said. "So I guess we have a truce—for today, anyway. And we won't tell anyone about you being a Dark Lord, if that's what you want. Since I assume that's what you meant by 'keeping our mouths shut'." 

"That covers you, but what about the fuzzball?" 

"My _name_ is _Pokota_! Why can't anyone except Zel seem to remember that?!" Not so much angry as forcing his anger and indignation to the fore to keep from being afraid, I realized, and smiled crookedly. 

Zelgadis coughed. "Pokota, it might be better if you let him call you whatever he wants." 

Gaav's laugh seemed to surprise the chimera. "Actually, I appreciate defiance. Up to a point. Not many people have the balls to tell me off to my face. Pokota, then. What's your answer?" 

"I don't really want to fight you either," Pokota said. "And if I start running around talking about Dark Lords, who's going to believe me anyway? I have a hard enough time getting people to listen to me about normal stuff, looking like this." 

My mate nodded. "Good enough." 

"Just a moment before you dump us back into normal space," I said. 

"What is it, little dragon?" 

I closed the distance between us in four quick steps, reached up, and pulled his head down. He chuckled softly before he brought our mouths together, kissing me with the same hunger as I felt. 

"Just a few more hours and I'll have you all to myself," he said as we parted. "Hope you're ready not to be able to walk in the morning." 

"Not even you could manage that," I retorted with a smirk. 

His expression mirrored mine. "Val, you should know by now what I do when someone presents me with a challenge." 

"I'm counting on it." 

His hand lingered on my shoulder for a moment before he strode away, and I hurried to place myself back beside the gaping, blushing chimera and his odd companion before time and space took hold again. The less changed the situation when we became visible to the townspeople, the less there would be to explain, after all. 

Zelgadis opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, the light shifted and brightened and there were people all around us. 

"Serves you right!" someone shouted, nearly in my ear. A middle-aged man wearing a pink gingham apron. I looked over just in time to see him blink, frown, and rub his eyes. 

"Are you the one who refused to serve these two?" I asked, gesturing to Zelgadis and Pokota. 

"Yes, sir, I am. And proud of it!" 

I snorted. "Well, then, I hope you can live off your pride, because if I hadn't intervened, this part of Loak would be a smoking crater." 

Several of the people watching us winced. 

"So," I said, "how are you going to repay me for saving your livelihood and possibly your life?" 

The guy in the apron was eyeing me warily, now. "What would you suggest, sir?" 

"A free dinner for ten. Including the fuzzball there, a beastman, and various other uncultured sorts. You can stick us in a back room, if you like, so that no one needs to know you served such a bunch of ruffians. If you give us anything less than your best, though, I'll blow up the building myself." I drew out the tiniest bit of my power, forming a crackling ball of dark fire in the cupped palm of my left hand. "Better make up your mind quickly." 

Actually, although the ball _looked_ really nasty, it didn't have much more power than a Lighting spell. If I threw it, it would make some more scorch marks on whatever it hit and give the nearest people a mild sunburn, that was all. However, I wasn't about to tell pink-gingham-apron that, especially not when all that delicious fear was rolling off him in such waves. The part of me that was soaked in dark energies was doing everything short of purring to show how much it was enjoying the meal. 

The man in the apron swallowed visibly. "As you wish, sir. Please bring your party along to our back door when you're ready, and we will do our best to make you comfortable." 

He darted away into the restaurant to our left and shut the door. 

"Would you really have blown up his restaurant?" Pokota asked as the crowd around us began to break up. 

I smirked. "If I'd had any idea which one it was until just now . . . sure, why not? It isn't like you have any business lecturing me about it, after what you almost did." 

"Why invite us to dinner at all?" Zelgadis asked abruptly. 

"To piss off our friend in the apron." I snorted. "Really, I'm not a complex person when it comes to motivations—just executions." 

"I think I'd rather you didn't use the word 'execution', all things considered." Zelgadis rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Who are the other six people, anyway? Or were you just planning for Pokota's appetite when you asked for dinner for ten?" 

"How would I know what his appetite was like? No, Jillas came looking for me, and we ended up attaching him, his escort, and a random clerk from Gyria City we ran into at our last stop." 

"Val, are these friends of yours?" 

"Wait a minute, you were travelling with Filia-sama when I first met her—Zelgadis, that's it!" 

Kel and Jillas spoke almost simultaneously. Behind them, the three mercs had fanned out, with Ryan being half-pushed and half-carried along by Foltig and Erig. Gaav, bringing up the rear, loomed over them all. 

I did introductions—really, I didn't have much of a choice. Zelgadis got a really odd look on his face when I gave him my mate's assumed name. Judging from what I could taste of his emotions, he was trying to keep himself from bursting into hysterical laughter. 

"What was all that business with the fireballs and stuff, anyway?" Foltig asked once everyone knew each others' names. 

"Pokota there was refused service in a restaurant," I said. "Hopefully a good one, because I managed to con the owner out of a free meal for everyone." 

"It smelled pretty good," Pokota said. 

"Free food?" Erig asked with a wide grin. "Then what are we waiting for?"


	15. Chapter 15

Pokota belched and flopped down on the table like a furry bowling ball to pick his teeth. The stack of plates beside him was taller than he was. 

"Where the hell does he put it all?" Erig asked no one in particular. 

"Your guess is as good as mine," Zelgadis said, with a shrug. "But most high-level mages eat like that, or at least the ones I've known. And they're all skinny." 

"Because humans can't absorb astral energy directly, even in the half-assed way dragons and elves do," I said. "So they have to generate it internally. That burns a lot of fuel." 

Zelgadis scowled, and looked down at his gloved hands. His emotions roiled with hate and disgust, but it was old and cold and worn. _Yes, the reason you don't need to eat like that is that the brau demon part of you is absorbing the energies directly._ Saying it out loud would just have caused a scene, though, and I didn't need more . . . nourishment. The meal, despite my misgivings, had been excellent, and I'd stuffed myself almost as thoroughly as Pokota, with less excuse. And snickered along with everyone else when Gaav had sent the first couple of bottles of wine back and chewed out the sommelier for even keeping such mediocre horse-piss in his cellar. My mate might prefer beer, but he'd also tasted most of the great vintages decanted since the Shinma War, and knew the difference between a good wine and a bad one. 

Right now, I was feeling very satisfied and almost sleepy, leaning against his side with his arm curled around me. In the thousand years we'd known each other, such peaceful moments had always been rare, something to treasure. 

"I still can't believe you two are . . . together," Zelgadis said suddenly. 

I raised an eyebrow. "And why not?" 

The chimera flushed. "You just don't look like the type, I guess. Either of you." 

Foltig and Erig chuckled along with us. 

"The looks don't matter," Erig said. "I used to know the ugliest pair of half-trolls you ever saw—big, bald guys with tusks, so wide they had to sidle to get through doors . . . 'cept one of them had trouble with that, too, what with the belly he was building up. And they were so crazy for each other that you had to keep on eye on them when they were on guard duty to make sure they didn't go dragging each other off into the bushes for a little fun. Gavrik's downright pretty by comparison. Hell, I know plenty of people who'd be jealous of both of them." 

Hen-chan flushed. Oh, hell, was he still carrying a torch for me? I'd hoped that seeing me looking ten years older and all scarred up would burn out what infatuation he had left, but it was starting to look like it might have made it worse. _I hope he doesn't ask about a threesome._

"I don't think any of us would have thought Val was into beefcake when we first met him, but he didn't say, and we didn't ask," Foltig added. "If it works for them, then it works, and it's none of our business otherwise." 

"What are you two doing here, anyway?" I asked Zelgadis, hoping to change the subject. 

"Pretty much the same thing I've been doing for nearly a century now, with no luck at all," Zelgadis said. "Looking for some way to turn myself back into a human being. Pokota tagged along because he wanted to field-test one of his inventions. That hasn't been working out so well either." 

"I thought for sure Zel would have enough power to make it work," the plush creature said. "But he can only sustain it for a few seconds." 

"Now I'm curious," my mate said. "Just what the fuck was it you were testing?" 

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to show everyone. Zel . . . ?" 

The chimera pulled an odd-shaped object out from under his cloak and set it on the table between the empty platters, and suddenly I was wide awake and reaching out. 

"Ragud Mezegis was taken from this world, and it certainly wasn't made by—" I stopped in mid-sentence as I closed my hand around it. "This is a fake." 

Pokota used his ear-arms to get enough leverage to roll back to his feet. "That's right—you had the real one for longer than Zel, didn't you? Can you tell me what's wrong with it?" 

"Pretty much everything," I said as I extended my senses further into the astral to probe in more detail. "The real Darkstar Weapons were . . . like lenses." I winced as a flash of memory not entirely my own moved through my head. Darkstar and Volphied were no longer inside me, but I could recall what my thoughts had contained while I'd been joined with them, although anything of theirs I that hadn't passed through my conscious mind was gone . . . and some of the rest was too mind-shatteringly vast for one little dragon to understand. I was going to have to talk to Gaav about that, let him pick through the fragments and see if he could pull out anything of value to us, but now was not the time. "They focused and transformed the wielder's will, perfectly and losslessly." 

"That shouldn't be possible," Pokota said. "Any change of state should bring about some loss of energy—" 

"The rules may be different in the Overworld," I interrupted, not interested in a lecture on the mechanics of magic delivered by a fuzzball. "And divine artefacts might not have to obey them in any case. We're talking about something created by a composite entity that was simultaneously both a Dark Lord and a Dragon God, which I doubt has happened at any other time in the history of the Four Worlds. Anyway, what you have here is completely different from what Darkstar built. You've got . . . some kind of astral power source tied in here to supplement the converted willpower, I think . . . and a gathering net to charge it, and . . . damn, what is this, a leech-line to the user's power-pool?" 

"Pretty much," Pokota said. "The first one I made—the imitation Sword of Light—it just had the converter, the battery, and the charging-net, but it kept running out of power at the worst possible moment . . . I figured it had to be possible to do better than that. So I put the leech-line in this one, but using it takes so _much_ power . . ." 

"I can sustain it for sixteen seconds after the battery runs out," Zelgadis said. "We timed it. Pokota gets fourteen seconds. I don't know what Lina would get, but it can't be that much more. So this thing's of no more use than the imitation Sword of Light. Probably less." 

"Lina Inverse . . . I'd guess nineteen seconds, no more," Gaav said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he contemplated the weapon. "Her pool capacity isn't all that much larger than yours—she's just got the bucket capacity of a greater dragon, and knows how to use it. A gold dragon might be able to power the thing as much as five minutes. A Mazoku of the middle rank or higher could support it indefinitely, assuming they were feeding at the same time." 

Pokota scowled at his brain-child. "That really wasn't what I wanted to hear. I guess it's back to the drawing board." 

"Since this one is of no use to you . . ." I began, then let the sentence trail off suggestively, still holding the imitation Ragud Mezegis. Five minutes additional use-time for a gold dragon might mean as much as half an hour for me, even if I didn't use my ability to feed off dark emotions. And the power output seemed to be about the same as the original. I was kind of looking forward to trying to feed it to Xellos, pointy end first. 

"Take it if you like," the fuzzball said, still scowling. He looked ridiculous. 

Foltig stretched. "Time we went and looked for an inn or two," he said. "Ryan, do you have enough cash to pay your way, or—" 

"I'll pay for him," Kel interrupted. "So it won't be a problem." 

I wanted to shake my head. Sometimes Kel could be so damned . . . naive. 

Foltig and Erig left first, then Hen-chan, Kel, and Ryan, together in a lump. That left me with my mate, Jillas, the chimera, and the fuzzball. 

"So spill it," Gaav said to Zelgadis. "You've been waiting to ask me something ever since we came in here—I can feel it eating at you." 

The chimera stared at him for several moments in silence. Then, "Do _you_ know of any way to turn me back into a human being?" 

"If I said no, would you give up?" 

Zelgadis shook his head. "Being a Dark Lord doesn't make you omniscient—I've seen enough proof of that since I met Lina. No, I'll go on looking." 

Gaav snorted. "Stubborn, aren't you? But I'm pretty sure there _is_ a way. It would just take a lot of power to pull off." 

The chimera looked like he wanted to lunge across the table. " _Tell me._ " 

My mate stared at him coldly for several moments until he sat back down properly in his chair. "Well. The first thing you have to understand is that your astral form, your spirit, whatever you want to call it, has way too much brau demon in it now to ever be purified in any conventional way. You'd just shred yourself and end up as a fucking vegetable if you tried. Besides, I'm pretty sure there isn't enough astral energy in you to make up a whole human plus a whole brau demon even if you miraculously found some way to strain the one out of the other without doing any damage. Chances are that part of the human you was ripped away when Rezo assembled the chimera you." 

"Quit beating around in the bush!" 

"Hmph. And here I thought you were the rational one of that bunch. The only way of getting the missing bits of you back is by using a time-reversal spell. To avoid having you end up without your memory, it would have to be recorded on something first, then burned back into your pristine human brain. That would be the easy part, though. A time-reversal spell capable of dragging an entire person back through more than eighty years would take more energy than any mortal's likely to be able to scrape together, and I don't owe you that kind of a favour. Or any other kind, for that matter." 

"We just gave you that Ragud Mezegis—" 

"That was a transaction between Pokota and me, not you and my mate," I interrupted. "One with no strings attached, or so I understood. If not, I can always return your friend's toy. You know, it's funny . . . Mazoku may play twisty games with the wording of contracts, but I've never, ever seen one attempt to make brazen retroactive changes to an agreement without the other party's permission. Must be a human thing." I smirked. 

Enraged human-brau-golem chimeras apparently turn a fetching shade of mauve. Too bad they also take deep breaths, swallow, and pull themselves back from the edge before starting a fight. Their anger's tasty, though. Sharper than a normal human's. A bit like a well-aged cheese. 

"What do you want?" Zelgadis asked, gripping the edge of the table so hard that his fingers were biting into the wood. "I'll do anything, if it means you'll cure me. Anything at all." 

Gaav's smile was not nice at all. "And what could you _possibly_ do that would benefit me enough to pay for that? Kill Xellos, maybe?" 

Zelgadis froze. Blinked. "If that's what it takes," he said slowly. "I know _he_ won't help me, even if he has the power. I'm too . . . tasty . . . like this." 

"The slimy little cone's too picky about his food. Anyway, forget it. He's out of your league." Gaav paused, then added, "I'll grant you this much. _If_ you can come up with something that you think is a reasonable exchange for my help, come find me then. Unlike Xellos, I don't give a flying fuck how you taste, so I'm not actively _against_ helping you—I'm just not willing to do it for free." 

The chimera slowly unclenched his fingers from the table. "I'll keep that in mind." And, sounding as though the words were being dragged out of him with a barbed hook, "Thank you. This is the first hope I've had in a long while." 

"Hope's fleeting, and it's only nutritious if you happen to be a Dragon God." My mate heaved his chair away from the table and stood up. "Come on, Val. Let's go find a room." 

"After three days without privacy, I have to admit that I'm looking forward to that," I said, gathering up the fake Ragud Mezegis. 

Zelgadis shook his head. "I still can't believe that you two . . . no, scratch that. I don't _want_ to believe that you two are together. The images the idea brings to mind are . . . ugh . . ." 

"I don't think it's your business, Zelgadis-san." I think we'd all half-forgotten that Jillas was there until he spoke up. "Gaav-sama makes Valgaav-sama _happy_. Doesn't he deserve a little of that, just this once?" Then, more quietly, "Don't we all?" 

There were three inns across the street. We stared down the doorman at the most expensive one, flashed some gold at the innkeeper, and rented their best suite. There was even a little room off to the side for a valet, which Jillas immediately appropriated, leaving the master bedroom for us. And I don't know which prince the inn expected to play host to, but the down mattress in that bedroom was big enough for _three_ Gaavs. 

"Not bad at all," my mate said, shrugging out of his sword harness and propping the weapon against the wall. 

"I hope we didn't make too much of a splash," I said, settling my sword and the false Ragud Mezegis together on top of the desk. 

"I doubt it matters if we did. If someone was going to get on our asses for what happened at that stupid festival, they would have made some kind of move by now. So I'm pretty sure we're clear until we get to Gyria City. Once we get there, I'm betting on some kind of a fight, though." 

_Hoping for one, more like._ I shook my head slightly, feeling a crooked, affectionate smile curve my mouth. Some things hadn't changed since that night in the desert, and I doubted they ever would. If they had, he just wouldn't have been the same person. 

Stripping off his coat, he revealed the crudely mended shirt that he still wore underneath . . . and that, too, was exactly like him. He'd never admit that he valued it, but he'd keep the damned thing until it was worn to a rag, without bothering to fix it properly, because I'd been the one to sew that horrible seam. 

"Let me see your wings, little dragon," he said, and although he wasn't smiling, there was a fond softness in his eyes. One of those hidden expressions that he never showed to anyone but me. 

"Just a moment," I said, and took my shirt off—there was no need to stick myself with more mending. I shifted my stance, twitched my power, and my wings erupted from my shoulders. 

He beckoned me forward, and I positioned myself in front of him, leaving myself open to whatever he wanted. Big hands smoothed my feathers, caressed my shoulders, my arms, my chest and throat. I inhaled, trying to ignore the sudden tightness in my pants, and watched his eyes as they flickered up and back, unfocused in the odd way that told me he was concentrating on the astral again. 

"Still no pain?" he asked me, returning the larger part of his attention to the physical plane. 

"Not from those. Although I do have the worst case of blue balls in history." 

He smiled, but when he spoke, his voice was subdued. "Good. That's . . . good. I think you'll be ready for the final stage tomorrow." 

And none too soon, if we were going into danger. 

He was waiting, as though he expected questions from me. Like, _What's the final stage?_ Or maybe, _When this is finished, what am I going to be, really?_

Except that I didn't care. What he was doing to me meant power, I knew that. Power that I wanted. And I trusted him not to harm me. 

There was also the minor fact that he probably didn't know himself exactly what the outcome of what he was doing to me would be. If this worked, I would be the first of my kind. No other creature had ever tried to contain both the power of a Dragon God and that of a Dark Lord inside his body at the same time, in a stable, balanced form—Darkstar had been bodiless, unbalanced, and accidental. We'd have to invent a new word for me. 

"Now that you're satisfied, why don't we take advantage of that bed?" I asked, sliding my arms around his neck. "It's been pure torture, you know: having you right there beside me, but also not being able to get you alone for long enough to _do_ anything . . ." 

"Mmm. How do you want it, then?" He was already bending forward as he asked. 

"From behind," I breathed against his lips. _As close as possible to the way it should be, with my wings spread wide and your weight against my back . . ._ It could never be perfect, of course, not in these bodies, but it wasn't as though being in human form offered no compensation at all for its disappointing unnaturalness . . . Dragons can't kiss, for instance. You need a flat face and a jaw that works a certain way for that. And right now, I was enjoying the flavour of my mate's mouth and the pressure of his tongue against mine. 

A gesture from him had us naked, and our clothes in two neatly folded piles on the chest against the wall under the window. They were probably clean, too. Having had his power since the very beginning, he could do stuff like that without even thinking about it, where I would have had to concentrate on each step. It was unfair, but so was everything else in life. 

He pushed me back onto the mattress, and I obeyed wordlessly, spreading my wings wide so that they didn't get crushed, and my legs, so that he could rest between them. Leaning over me, he rutted against me, my cock rubbing his, each leaving sticky-wet trails on the other, and I made a soft, involuntary sound in my throat. 

His hands curled under my shoulders, lifting me a bit so that he could rub the bases of my wings, and I was seized with a sudden urgent need to transform fully, to crouch and offer myself to the real him, the magnificent dragon I could feel looming over me on the astral. The impulse was so strong that my tail shot out and I trilled a loud mating call before I could get myself back under control. 

"You're even more eager tonight than you were after almost a century apart," he said. "Horny little dragon." 

I wanted to say something sarcastic, but instead another trill forced its way out as his hand explored the complex geometry formed by my ass and the base of my tail, hooking my ankles over his shoulders to get my legs out of the way. _Fuck._ I had to pull myself together for at least a few seconds, or I wouldn't be able to cast the lube spell . . . 

My mate laid his hand on my stomach for a moment, and a ripple of his power moved through me. I gasped as I felt muscles relax. 

"Calm down, or you're going to come early. Still want it from behind?" 

"Yuss . . ." The word come out distorted, but I thought it was decipherable enough. My tail touched his leg and instantly curled around it. 

He laughed. "Oh, I do like it when you're this way. Up on all fours with you, or I'm going to take you just like this." He smacked the outside of my thigh lightly for emphasis. 

He pulled away from me and I rolled over onto my knees and elbows, rump in the air, my tail twitching as it fought to lash back and forth and keep its grip on him, both at once. My cock rested on the incline of my thighs, and I could feel the tip leaking one drop of milky fluid after another against my skin, each running tortuously down to stain the bed's velvet coverlet. My wings sagged to either side, and I felt my back go concave, my head pushing up, tail lifting and twisting at the base, getting itself out of the way. Dragon instinct again, active for the first time in decades. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood, muting another trill. 

"Don't worry, little dragon. I'm not going anywhere until we're _both_ satisfied." He was on the bed behind me, knees planted to either side of my legs, the tip of his cock rubbing wetly at the folds of skin at the base of my tail before it found its place and began to push in. 

He leaned forward over my back as he impaled me, so close I could feel the warmth of him against my skin. His hair tickled the side of my neck as the metal ring that held it in place struck the coverlet with a soft thud, and his hands covered mine, talons— _fingers_ —interlacing. What was happening on the astral overlapped the physical so closely that I was seeing both at once, _feeling_ his flanking heads nuzzle and lick at me even though it was arguable whether they really existed right now. 

"Is this what you wanted?" he murmured in my ear. I managed a nod. "Good, because it's exactly what I want too." 

He pulled out and thrust back in again, adjusting his angle slightly, and I trilled so loudly that they must have heard me in Gyria City. He seemed to have run out of words for the moment, instead grunting with each thrust. I pushed my hips up to meet him, feeling the warmth of his breath against the back of my neck. His every movement inside me pushed the delicious warm tension gathering between my thighs a notch higher. On the astral, his tongue traced a path from my left earhole to the base of my skull and then back up to the right, and I shuddered, trill becoming a roar as I spurted like a waterfall, coating my knees and the coverlet around them in white. 

Gaav thrust deep inside me one last time, and I heard the deep, triumphant growl as he filled me with his seed, felt the tingling warmth as my body began to wrest the energy from it. 

" _Fuck_ ," I whispered hoarsely, feeling limp. 

"Not again quite yet," my mate said. 

"Why . . . ?" 

"I need a few minutes of recovery time. It isn't a fucking _faucet_ , Val." 

"You _know_ that isn't what I meant." 

"Yeah, but I'm not quite sure what you did mean." 

"If a half-assed imitation is this good, what would it be like if we could really . . ." 

A sigh. "Fucked if I know—I've never had sex in dragon form, and I'll never have a chance to try it out now. It scares me sometimes, though, how badly I want it. I keep on dreaming of you, all plump with my eggs and ready to lay them . . . _Fuck_ . . . I know Ruby-Eye patterned me after your kind, but I sometimes wish he'd gone a little lighter on the details." There was a squishing sound as he pulled out of me and flopped down beside me on the bed. He was actually blushing—the first time I'd ever seen such a thing—and I watched in fascination as the redness spread. 

I rolled over onto my side and curled my tail loosely around his leg. It took me a couple of minutes to dredge back through very old, seldom-examined memories to find the information I wanted. 

"The egg thing is normal for a mated male pair, I think," I said slowly. "It would also be normal for me to dream about being pregnant and laying, although I never have. Just leftover instincts from the days when mating was mostly for making sure the male would stick around and look after his hatchlings." 

"Nice to know I'm not going crazy," my mate muttered. "Anything else of interest come up in your sex-ed lessons?" 

I shook my head. "I've forgotten more than I remember about them, actually." Most of the relevant information had been embedded in that stupid "you are now fledglings" lecture they'd given us when I'd turned one hundred, which I hadn't listened to all that hard. At least our Elders had been more frank about the sex aspects than Filia's clan apparently was, although they should have caught it about thirty years earlier, before most of us had started to experiment. 

. . . Funny, how thinking of them didn't hurt right now. There was an occasional sharp stab when I managed to dredge an identifiable face or voice up out of my memory—my parents', my bossy older sister's, those of the agemates that I'd gotten along with—but the deep, wrenching, constant pain I'd always used to feel was gone, and the clanmates I'd known less well had all kind of blurred together into a smeary mass, like a rained-on watercolour. 

My focus just wasn't on them anymore. The years of relative peace—and perhaps the deaths of those responsible—had finally let the wounds scab over a bit, although I sensed that they could be ripped open again if I wasn't careful. But right now, I didn't hurt. 

"What are you grinning about?" my mate asked. 

"Just thinking that it feels strange to have a future worth looking forward to." 

"Hmm?" 

"Might not be a perfect revenge, but my people's murderers are gone, and you and I are together. What else could I wish for? 'Cept for hatchlings of our own, but we both know that isn't going to happen." I could see them in my mind's eye, though—a tiny three-headed dragon with dark scales and blue eyes getting his necks tangled together as he struggled to tear apart a plush Xellos, or a feathery red one stalking my tail from his hiding place under a table. "Besides, when it comes down to it, we'd make horrible dads. I doubt you even have any parental instincts, and mine are probably messed up beyond belief." 

"The world doesn't need a combination of the worst of the two of us, anyway." 

"Probably not," I admitted with a sigh. "And I know our lives are going to get crazy again soon enough. Still, right here, right now, I can't help feeling . . . happy." 

His hand came to rest on my head, fingers tangling themselves in my messy hair. "Me too, little dragon," he said, sounding a bit surprised. "Me, too." 

Another one of those casual flexes of his power cleaned the bed and both of us as well, _and_ rearranged the bedding so that I was under the coverlet with the other half flipped back and my tail sticking out from under it to coil around Gaav's leg. Somehow, he managed to arrange his half of the blankets without ever breaking that connection. 

Normally I had no trouble sleeping when I was cuddled up against him, but this time I woke in the pitch-blackness of an overcast night with the sense that something wasn't quite right. There was no sound or smell or sense of anyone but the two of us being in the room, but from somewhere nearby I detected an odd, subtle flavour of confusion. And it didn't taste like Jillas. 

I called light and rolled toward the presence, my hand becoming taloned as I reached toward it, all in a single motion. 

"Who are you?!" I snapped as my outstretched claws brushed a dark hooded robe, a nearly-invisible shadow among shadows. It dodged backward—awkwardly, but I was too tangled in blankets to justify critiquing anyone else's form—crashed against the wall, and then vanished into the astral. I swore and snapped at it on that side, but all I caught between my teeth was a swirl of astral mist. 

I yanked my attention back to the physical just as Gaav was opening his eyes and sitting up. 

"Valgaav? What the fuck was that?" 

"I don't know," I said. "More than a bad dream, if that's what you're wondering." 

"Mmph. I can feel that the astral's in an uproar, and I can tell it isn't all because of you, but . . ." He frowned, eyes narrowing. "Tell me exactly what happened." 

There wasn't much to tell, but I gave him what I could. His expression became grimmer as I spoke. 

"None of my defenses have been disrupted," he said slowly when I was done. "If I didn't trust you, I'd think the astral turbulence was due to me flailing around in my sleep, because I don't detect any other signature. None at all." 

"Well, you can't have been sleep-walking," I said, "because I still had my tail wrapped around your leg when I woke up. And you had your hand on my ass. Besides, whoever was wearing that robe was too short to be you. And too clumsy." 

"You're sure this person tripped while trying to dodge you." 

I nodded, running the moment through my mind's eye again. "It was almost as though I was watching someone who was paralyzed on the right side. Very strange." 

" . . . None of this makes any sense," he growled. "What the fuck is going on here?" 

"Someone's trying to confuse us. It's the only answer that makes sense." 

"Question is, who? And why?" 

"Xellos?" 

But Gaav shook his head. "The slimy little cone wouldn't have run away without saying or doing something to piss you off. No, this is . . . fuck, I don't even know." 

"Sleep on it," I suggested. 

"I'm not sure I dare. Whoever— _what_ ever—that fucking thing was, I didn't notice it coming in. If it comes back with an enchanted sword or something . . . well, I doubt it would kill either of us, but I'm pretty sure it _would_ end up being a pain in the ass." 

Shit. He was right. 

"We could just seal the room completely for a few hours, so that nothing—including us—gets in or out without cancelling the spell first," I said. "Because I am _not_ going to waste a bed this nice by sleeping in shifts." 

That got a hint of a smile from him. "You're turning into a hedonist, little dragon . . . but that might be good enough." 

On the astral, the massive red dragon raised all three of its heads and breathed crackling red fire into the misty dark, building up a dome that glowed sullenly around the two of us. On the physical plane, it took the form of an energy rippling through the walls of the bedroom, binding the two planes and creating a red haze over the windows. 

"We're going to have to keep a better watch while we're on the road," my mate said, but I just snuggled in closer to him and threw a wing across us both. 

"We'll worry about it in the morning," I said, and extinguished my light. 

I had to admit, though, that I didn't sleep nearly as well after that.


	16. Chapter 16

The big carthorses plodded on through the rain, and Foltig, in the driver's seat of the wagon, swore as the wheels threw up liquid mud and spattered him. 

The rest of us were dry, if a little cramped, listening to the rain pounding against the canvas above our heads. 

I hadn't been entirely happy with the idea of the wagon at first, and I don't think Gaav had either, but the others had decided they weren't going anywhere without some kind of shelter from the falling water. In the end, I think it was the fact that it would give Ryan less to bitch about that cinched it and made my mate shell out to pay for our new vehicle, which had once been used to transport workers to and from the marble quarry. It was shabby, containing two splintered benches along the sides and not much else, but no one seemed to mind. Including the chimera who had flagged us down and climbed on board at the outskirts of Loak. Now Zelgadis sat across from Gaav and I, head hanging as he dozed, and Pokota was perched on someone's pack, tumbled into a corner. 

The one annoying thing about the wagon was that we couldn't really talk while we were riding in it—or at least, not about anything important. The intruder last night, what we might end up finding in Gyria City, much of the past and the future . . . weren't acceptable topics in front of outside witnesses, or urgent enough to justify the two of us using telepathy. Even a silent conversation can be noticed if you're having it in front of people, unless you can keep a perfect poker face the whole time. 

Zelgadis woke and scrubbed his hand across his face, then tilted his head back with a sigh. 

"Don't poke holes in the canvas," I warned him, eyeing his metallic hair. Really, I'd been kind of surprised when, on stepping up into the wagon, he'd taken off his hood as well as pulling down his mask. Everyone here had seen his face at the restaurant, of course, but . . . 

"I think I liked you better as an egg," the chimera said. 

"So did a number of other people, I suspect. You could form a fan club." I smirked and snuggled more closely against my mate. "Fortunately, there's only one person whose opinion matters to me." 

"And I never imagined you being . . . cuddly." 

_If I'm touching him, then I know for certain that he's really there._ But I wasn't going to say that, and I especially wasn't going to talk about the nightmares I'd had of my mate vanishing in front of me as the world unravelled . . . Even Gaav didn't know about those, and I'd stopped having them since I'd succeeded in saving him. 

"Hey, give them a break," Erig said. "They've only just gotten back together after being separated for years and years. I'd probably be a bit cuddly too." 

"Be glad we're _only_ cuddling," Gaav added, lazy amusement in his voice. "I don't really have any human inhibitions, you know." 

_You have got to be kidding me,_ the chimera's expression said. 

"Val wouldn't do that! Not in front of everyone," Kel said. 

"Oh, I figure I'd mostly live it down in a century or so," I said easily. "We might damage the wagon, though. And I was _quite_ well looked-after last night." 

Varying degrees of embarrassment, with a sprinkling of disgust and even envy, filled the wagon for a moment. 

"Do you just go along with everything he says?" Kel asked, challenging. 

"I save the arguments for the things that matter." Explaining to the half-elf that one of the things I liked about being with Gaav was that I didn't have to worry about being in charge was . . . not going to happen with several people staring at us, and probably wouldn't have happened even if we were alone, because there was no way in hell that he would understand. "What we have . . . works for us. It always has." 

Erig shook his head. "I can never figure out people who manage to stick to just one partner. There are so many good-looking girls—and guys, I guess, if that's your preference—in the world, that it seems like such a waste." 

"On the other hand, I don't have to worry about jealous spouses, overprotective parents, exotic venereal diseases, or being scammed out of my cash and clothes and left naked by the roadside," I pointed out. 

Erig chuckled. "I knew a guy that happened to once. He had to walk three miles holding his hands in front of his crotch." 

"Which means it's a good thing you didn't have more there to cover," Foltig called from the driver's seat, getting a round of snickers and snorts. 

"A goat-man I knew a long time ago got himself turned out naked with his hands tied behind his back," Zelgadis contributed unexpectedly. "We never did figure out for sure whether his partner was a nanny or a billy, but everyone looked at him pretty funny after he limped into camp that day." 

"You know, I'm starting to wonder—" Pokota began, then broke off again as the wagon rumbled to a stop. "What's going on?" 

"There's a tree across the road," Foltig said. "I'll get down and have a look." 

"You'll stay up there with those reins in your hands and drive on as soon as the way's clear," Gaav corrected sharply. "Val . . ." 

"I count twenty-one, spread out to either side of the road." _And pissed off at the weather,_ I didn't add. 

"What are you talking about?" Kel asked. 

"Bandits," my mate said. "Unless you believe the local Dragon Scout troop is out doing a wilderness survival exercise in this crap, and the roadblock is just a coincidence." 

Erig sighed. "It's always in weather like this . . ." He reached for his sword. 

My mate gestured for him to stay where he was. "Val and I can handle this. There's no sense in the rest of you getting wet." 

" _Twenty_ of them?" 

I smirked. "They're just humans. Not exactly a challenge for us. And I've been wanting to try this out," I added, picking up the imitation Ragud Mezegis and testing its balance. 

We swung down from the back of the wagon and walked casually around to the front, where Foltig was soothing the skittish horses. Pretending ignorance, we headed over to examine the tree, a good-sized pine that had clearly been hauled a fair distance to put it in place. A blind man could have seen the track they'd hauled it along. 

"Pretty lousy tactics," my mate said with a snort. 

"Oh, I don't know—one bunch that I ran into in Ruvinagald last year tried to block me by forming a human chain across the road." I shook my head. "Do you mind if I'm the one to blast this? It isn't just my new toy I want to try out." 

"Go ahead." 

I raised my hand and called dark Mazoku fire. It felt just the way it always had, except without the painful prickle along my nerves. The trick was not to draw too much. I wanted to destroy the tree, not leave a crater in the road. 

The tree blew up in a shower of splinters and pine needles, leaving a slightly scorched (but undamaged) road dusted with debris. _Perfect._ Power governance had been one of the most difficult things for me to learn as a Mazoku, since you just can't use a dragon's power in the same way, and I'd been worried that I was going to have to do interminable drills to get my control back. 

I raised my voice. "So, are you idiots going to come out? We don't give free shows, you know. You have to entertain us, too. It should be easy with ten of you for each of us, shouldn't it?" 

"If you make us wait too long, we might get pissed off and come after you," Gaav added with a nasty grin. He drew his sword and raised it to rest against his shoulder, which surprised me a bit until I realized that I wasn't the only one testing myself here. This would be his first actual fight since Phibrizzo had almost torn him apart, even if the opponents were about as dangerous as wet cardboard. 

"You think you jokers are so great, seeing through our ambush," said a raspy voice from somewhere off to our left. "Well, we'll show you! _Get them!_ " 

The bandits seemed to have been hiding under camouflage made of rough cloth covered with grass and branches. If the visibility had been just a bit worse than it already was, it might have looked like they were pushing up out of the ground. Then they rushed at us from both sides. 

" _Light, come forth!_ " I snapped, holding out the imitation Ragud Mezegis. The command wasn't really necessary with the original, but I wasn't sure whether or not this one would react in the same way. The flare of light and the sizzling sound that went with it were immensely reassuring, though. 

One of the bandits laughed. "What the fuck is that?" he asked, and scratched his beer belly for emphasis. 

"Come and find out," I suggested. "Or, on second thought, let me come to you." 

I took a step forward and swung, chopping the bandit in half. The bits fell in an untidy pile as I gutted a second man on the backswing. And then it was a free-for-all. I danced lightly between unkempt men with rusty weapons, grinning a bit crazily. Behind me, I could hear Gaav laughing and trash-talking his opponents. 

"Fuck, I'm starting to think I was right about you guys being a Dragon Scout troop—I've met three-year-olds who fight better! You sure you guys are bandits? Killed many little old mouse-ladies lately? 'Cause it seems to me that would be about your speed! Or do they beat your asses to a pulp with their walking sticks?" 

The insults were proof that he wasn't taking this very seriously—in a more challenging fight, he would have been choosing what to say a lot more carefully, instead of just yelling whatever came into his head. _Words are a weapon too,_ he'd told me once. _If you can make your opponent lose control, that's to your advantage._

We ran out of bandits before either of us could work up a good sweat, unfortunately. I didn't need to use the Ragud Mezegis long enough for the leech line to come into play, either, although Pokota had done a good job with the replica in other respects: the balance was perfect, and the blades cut physical objects without resistance, just as I remembered. I was going to have to arrange some controlled tests to see if it had the other interesting properties of the original, like the ability to pierce into the astral. If it did . . . if it did, then, no matter what the outcome of the transformation my mate and I were currently engineering inside me, I would have a weapon against Xellos. 

I deactivated the weapon and lowered it to rest at my side as Gaav shook the blood from his sword and returned it to its scabbard. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes glittered with frustration. 

"Something wrong?" I asked. 

His smile became a leer. "Just a lot of leftover energy, little dragon, and nowhere I can safely expend it, under the circumstances." 

"We could duck into the bushes for a few minutes." 

"In this?" He gestured at the rain. "Not very comfortable, and it isn't like I'm going to die of blue balls. Let's just go through these idiots' pockets and then move on." 

That got us a handful of silver, a couple of random pieces of jewelry, and a very nice dagger-and-sword set with sharpness and unrusting spells on them. There was nothing else on the bodies that was worth hauling out of there, so we kicked the remains off the road and returned to the wagon. 

"I thought I told you to drive on as soon as we had the tree out of the way," Gaav said to Foltig as we passed him. 

"Unfortunately, there were bandits in the way at that point," the mercenary retorted. "And the horses started to spook the moment they started to bleed. Hopefully they'll be a bit better now—at least the rain washes this crap away fast. Has anyone ever told you two you're scary in a fight, by the way?" 

"It's been said," I replied as I accepted my mate's hand and allowed him to help me back up into the wagon. 

Inside, Kel was looking a little green. So was Ryan, but Ryan was hopeless. 

"Val," the half-elf said. "Val, I can't believe you just . . . enjoyed . . . killing those men." 

Erig snorted. "Those were bandits, kiddo. I wouldn't call them men, exactly. More like human cockroaches. It's best to stamp them out wherever—" 

" _They were people!_ " Kel shouted at the top of his lungs. "They _were_ people," he repeated. "They were, and now they're just . . . lumps of meat." 

I think pretty much everyone else in the wagon sighed at that point, or rolled their eyes. 

"Do you think they would just have gone away if nobody had fought them?" Hen-chan asked. "I wish they would too, but that isn't how it works. My big sis . . . she died because no one wanted to kill a bandit. He used her . . . as a hostage . . ." The young mage swallowed visibly. "She was twelve and I was ten and she died right in front of me. And that's why I decided I was going to learn to fight, any way I could. Because I didn't want the same thing to happen to my little sister or my mom or . . . or anyone." 

"Sometimes only one side can live," Zelgadis said. "That means you have to choose. And not choosing is a choice too." 

"That explains killing them," Kel muttered sullenly. "It doesn't explain enjoying it." 

_Time to disillusion him._ And maybe if I did it powerfully enough, he would leave me alone. 

There was no place for an innocent in the life I wanted. 

"Did you think those were the only men I'd ever killed?" I asked, sneering. "I told you before, Kel, everything you think you know about me is a lie. I've been killing bandits regularly ever since I left Mossport—it's easy money, _and_ it's considered a public service. But I've done much, much worse than that." 

He recoiled, as I'd hoped. "Worse?" 

I tilted my head. "Well, there used to be a city in the far south called Pfalern. About twenty thousand people. A few months before I first met Zelgadis, I burned it to the ground, and did my best to ensure that no one escaped. They had something I needed, you see." The original Ragud Mezegis, to be exact, which had been enshrined at the entrance to their town hall. "I killed them all, sparing not even the babes-in-arms, because I wanted no witnesses and no one to seek revenge. Granted, I wasn't exactly sane at the time, but it does help put a few dead bandits in perspective, doesn't it?" 

Kel was even greener now. "You . . . well . . . if you weren't in your right mind . . . _You_ were there," he said, pointing at Gaav in sudden accusation. "You must have been! Why didn't _you_ stop him?" 

"That was during the period of about a year between when Gavrik was stolen from me and when I got turned back into an egg," I said, glad that the story I'd embroidered for the mercenaries allowed for the time-gap, and forcing myself to ignore the old, dull pain under my breastbone. "Widowed dragons often go a bit crazy—suicides are pretty common—and I'd already lost everything else . . ." 

Gaav put his arm around me, drawing me against his side. There is this about having a Mazoku partner more powerful than you: they can always tell when you need comfort, just from the flavour of your emotions. What they do about it is another matter, of course, but Gaav had always said there was enough Mazoku-fodder in the world that he didn't need my pain for dessert. 

"I wasn't so crazy that I didn't know what I was doing," I said. "I calculated it carefully—how far out I had to set the initial wall of fire to make sure I got everyone. Then I watched the whole thing burn from a cliff above the city, just in case there was anyone down there who knew Levitation that I needed to pick off. There wasn't. And I can't say for certain that I wouldn't do something similar again if I thought the circumstances called for it." 

"And if he really thought it was necessary, I doubt I'd bother to stop him," Gaav added. "Human lives, in the abstract, don't mean that much to me, and I owe Val one hell of a lot. More than that, I trust him. There aren't many people I'd say that about." 

Of all those here, only he and I knew how true that last sentence was, because we knew what life among the Mazoku was like. Lasting, uncoerced alliances were very rare—Kanzel and Mazenda, who had always worked together, were such an unusual case they could almost be considered unique. 

"You actually do care for him," Zelgadis said. 

Gaav raised a bushy brow. "Is it really _that_ surprising?" 

"I didn't think Mazoku were supposed to. And you didn't exactly make a great impression the first time we ran into you. I certainly never thought I'd be sitting across from you having a civil conversation, much less that you'd make an offer to help me." 

"I offered you an exchange." 

"You didn't ask for anything in return for the information you already gave me." 

A soft snort. "Your goodwill, maybe. Even without your current abilities, you know some useful people." 

Zelgadis got an odd expression on his face. "I hope you don't expect me to make a case for you to Lina. She . . . has very strong opinions, and she doesn't change them easily. And you did try to kill her." 

My mate shrugged. "She was working for Phibby at the time. Even if she didn't know it. It was pure luck—and the will of the Golden One—that the world survived that mess. What would you have done in my place, chimera?" His eyes were sharp and flinty and cold. I knew that expression. It was a bit of the real Gaav showing through the barbarian-warrior mask. 

"Tried to talk to her." 

"With Xellos around? You think I could just have walked up to her and had a conversation? Phibby would have come straight down on my head like a ton of dead dragon, and brought every higher Mazoku he could find with him. I couldn't be sure that knowing he was coming would be enough to let me get out of that alive. I may enjoy fighting, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid enough to walk naked into a dragon's den. Got any other suggestions?" 

"Xellos wasn't there all the time." 

"He was watching you just about constantly, even if you weren't aware of it. Sometimes from the astral. Don't tell me you're fucking surprised." 

Zelgadis frowned, but he said, "I guess I'm not, really. It sounds like the sort of thing he'd do." 

Hen-chan coughed. "Um, I've been following most of that, and I figured out that 'Lina' is Lina Inverse, but . . . Phibby? Xellos? And . . . the Golden One?" 

"'Phibby' is Hellmaster Phibrizzo," I provided "Xellos is the highest-ranking servant of the Beastmaster. The Golden One . . . is the being who created the Four Worlds, the progenitor of both Ceiphied and Shabranigdo, although only the Mazoku generally acknowledge that." 

"The Lord of Nightmares," Pokota added. "Lina told me a bit, when I asked her about some of her spells, although not enough for me to cast them myself. Not that I would test-cast the Giga Slave—that would be crazy!" 

Who would have thought that the fuzzball had more common sense than Lina Inverse? Although there were times that that wouldn't be hard, I had to admit. 

The conversation pretty much petered out after that, with Gaav irritated, Kel and Ryan sulking, Zelgadis deep in thought, Pokota and Jillas asleep, and no one willing to listen to Erig's brand of humour. I dozed, leaning against my mate, listening to the sound of his breathing and the drumming of the rain above our heads. 

It took more than one day to get from Loak to Gyria, of course, but the road was dotted with inns, each a half-day's travel apart, for the benefit of the marble-haulers, and we pulled up in front of one just as the sun was dipping toward the horizon. They had no other guests that night, as it turned out, so we spread out through all six available rooms. 

"I hope you're not feeling too tired, little dragon," my mate said once our door was closed behind us. 

"I've been asleep half of today," I pointed out, poking around the room. The bed was ordinary, with a straw-stuffed mattress covered with clean linen sheets and a patchwork quilt, slightly worn. "Why?" 

"The energies inside you are in nearly perfect balance, so the best time for the final step will be just before midnight." 

"Oh." My hand shook with eagerness as I set my Ragud Mezegis against the wall. 

"You want this that badly?" 

"I don't want to lose anyone else important to me because of my own weakness," I said. "I lost my people, I almost lost you . . . and when I thought I had, the pain broke me." _And I'm terrified that it's going to happen again._ "Anyway, don't bullshit me. You already know my reasons." 

He nodded. "I just wanted to be sure that you knew them too. This is another irreversible step that you're taking, Val, and I . . ." He shook his head with sudden violence. "Fuck, I still don't know how to handle this shit. Ask me to kick somebody's ass into next week and I can do it in my sleep, pretty much, but caring about someone . . . it's going to be another ten thousand years before I really have that one down. I'm never quite sure if I'm smothering you or what." 

"'Or what' is probably closer. Actually, I think you're doing a pretty good job when you consider just how messed up we both are." I looked him directly in the eyes, and added. "Even when we were separated, I never regretted choosing you. Not once." 

"Little dragon, I . . ." 

"You don't have to say it," I said. "I know how you feel. Better than anyone." I felt the corner of my mouth edging up. "And I suspect you know me even better than I do myself. Right now, though, we've got about a half-hour to wait before supper, and I'd like to . . ." My tongue tangled around the word, preventing it from escaping. 

"You'd like to what?" Gaav's bushy eyebrows rose. 

"I think the word is . . . cuddle," I admitted, scowling as my face turned bright red. Why the hell was it so hard to ask just to be held? _Because I've been taught to see it as weak. Because I'm afraid_ he'll _see me as weak, and I know he values my strength. Because although neither of us will come out and admit it, our relationship isn't the same now as it was before Hellmaster almost killed him, and we're still feeling our way into what's . . . allowed._ In the old days, I would never have asked him for anything. I wouldn't have dared. But I wasn't his servant anymore, and he wasn't my master except when I allowed him to be. Which, I had to admit, was most of the time. 

"You've been practically inside my coat with me all day and you want more?" 

I forced myself to keep my chin up, to keep looking him in the eye. "Yeah, I want more. Is there a problem with that?" 

"No problem at all. Come here." He sat down and patted the bed beside him. Realistically, there wasn't anywhere else for him to sit, except on the floor, since the lone chair had arms and was sized for mere mortals. 

I went, but instead of sitting down on the faded quilt, I lowered myself to his lap, sinking back against him with a sigh. This really was my favourite place to be: surrounded by him. And he didn't seem to mind either, because his arms wrapped loosely around me and he pressed the lower half of his face to the back of my head. I could feel his breath tickling my scalp. 

"What do I smell like, to you?" I asked suddenly. 

"Huh. I never thought about that before. Dragon, obviously. Hot metal, a bit. Something greenish that's hard to pin down—fresh grass? But mostly just of you. I'd recognize you anywhere, just from that." 

"Yeah, but if you went around sniffing at people trying to find me, it might raise some eyebrows," I said. 

"I'll save it for a last resort." We both chuckled. 

Dinner was decent, plain fare. Afterwards, Erig started a card game, betting with pebbles and bits of twig because Ryan didn't have any money. And it was a good thing, because if he'd started the evening with any, he wouldn't have still had it by the end, not the way the mercs played. I only participated in one hand, picked up from Jillas when he had to leave the room in a hurry after drinking too much tea, and I would have lost it if I hadn't sensed Erig's irritation when he picked up his hand and realized that he was bluffing when he started to raise the bets. It went on until Pokota got caught cheating. 

By the time the landlord came to close up the common room, Gaav and I were alone with Zelgadis and a sleeping Pokota. I thought the chimera was asleep too, until his eyes opened as my mate and I got up off the bench we'd been sharing and headed for the entrance. 

"Where are you two going?" he asked.


	17. Chapter 17

I shrugged. "To bed, where else?" 

"Through the outside door?" 

Damn, this man was too observant. "Well, in this weather I suppose you wouldn't believe we were going outside to sleep on the roof—" 

Gaav squeezed my shoulder. "We've got something to do tonight that doesn't involve anyone except us, but may involve throwing a lot of power around depending on exactly what happens. If we did it in here, we'd wake everyone up, and there's a small chance we might end up blowing up the inn. So—" He gestured at the door. "—we're taking it outside. Rain or no fucking rain." 

Zelgadis shook his head. "It's weird that you're actually more considerate than Lina . . . which means that I don't believe you." He rose from his chair. 

"What, you're going to keep an eye on us? Do you have a death wish?" I asked with a lazy smirk. 

"Probably." The chimera rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "But mostly, I just want to know if I need to start running." 

I snorted. "All right, then. You can play look-out, and warn us if Xellos shows up. In return, I'll give you a bit of information afterwards—a pointer to something you might be able to trade for your cure." 

The chimera's head jerked up so fast that I almost laughed. Also, one of Gaav's bushy eyebrows poked up out of alignment briefly. Since the idea had just popped into my head, I hadn't had time to discuss it with him, and I wasn't sure he was going to like it . . . but as far as I could tell, the worst that could come of it was him losing a bit of face, and that would hardly matter when everyone thought he was dead. Well, the other "worst that could happen" was possibly a dead chimera, but I probably cared more about that than my mate did, and I cared . . . very little. 

We walked for a good fifteen minutes, until we were out of sight of the inn, in a dip in the surrounding hills. The rain was still coming down so hard that Gaav expended a little of his power on warding it off, building an invisible roof above our heads. 

"I'd stay at least a full dragon-length away, chimera," my mate warned as we slowed to a stop. "I really don't know what this is going to do. Large craters and Val reverting suddenly to his natural form are both possible, and I don't give a shit if you get squished or blown up." 

Zelgadis blinked several times. "Ray Wing!" he cast, and floated upward inside the rain-free bubble. 

"He'll probably do better as a lookout from up there anyway," my mate muttered. "Not that someone who can't see into the astral is much use to begin with." 

"Can we just get on with this?" I asked. "I want . . ." _I don't want to be frightened anymore._ Although I should know better than anyone that more power isn't always a good solution to problems. 

Gaav nodded, the Lighting spell that was all either of us had to see by casting his face into shadow as it bobbed near his shoulder. "Once I do this, you're going to have to find a way to balance the energies yourself," he warned. 

He didn't bother adding that it was probably going to hurt. We both knew that already. 

He didn't even touch me . . . well, not on the physical, anyway. On the astral, I could feel his talons hooking the river of dark power inside my chest and forcing it up against the river of light right beside it. There was a sensation of pressure in my head and chest, getting stronger and stronger until something ruptured with a sudden sharp pain. 

That was just the beginning, though. 

White fire and crimson-black collided inside my chest, and I howled and gagged, gasping for air and trying to keep my supper down. The last time I'd been in this much pain, Lina Inverse had just fired off a Dragon Slave directly into my body. My initial transformation into a Mazoku hybrid had been easier. Hell, _dying_ had been easier. 

I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging my body. Fuck, it felt like there was molten metal eating a hole in my guts. I tried to say as much, but it came out as a gasp and a pained groan as the two types of power warred inside me. Last time, my own weakness and the immense influx of dark energy I'd been receiving had combined to push my natural power down and subordinate it to the other, but this time I had exactly the same amount of each, and they really didn't want to be rubbing against each other. 

Gaav made no move in my direction, but I could see the worry in his eyes, rising slowly toward fear. _I asked for this. I told him I could control it_ —maybe not in words, but by projecting confidence and eagerness. I . . . I didn't want to make him feel . . . there had to be some way to handle this . . . 

Darkstar had absorbed Volphied's power. He had known how to meld the two types of energy, but had that knowledge ever passed through me? 

With my breath coming in short gasps through gritted teeth, I forced myself to relive those hellish days. Hours? Months? I hadn't really been aware of time while I was joined with Darkstar, except when I was interacting with the outside world. But the second-hand memories, those I still retained, juddered and shimmered. I wasn't even sure some of the events had taken place in linear time. 

. . . There! A fleeting glimpse of Darkstar tearing at Volphied's flesh . . . swallowing . . . absorbing . . . Like that? I would never in a million years have guessed that it worked that way. Not just mixing the two powers, but using each to transform the other into the raw stuff of the universe. 

It was like trying to weave a sieve with my talons while blind drunk, but I persevered, biting down on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Because I wasn't going to give up. I could feel wind swirling around me as multicolored fire erupted from my skin, turning my clothes to ash and blowing them away into the sky to mix with the rain. It would be so much easier if everything wasn't so concentrated . . . _Oh, fuck, I'm an idiot,_ I thought, and let my body surge up and out and become what it was really supposed to be in the first place. 

The relief as the power lost density was so intense that I lost control for just a second, gagged, coughed blood, and wrestled it back again. _Oh, no, you don't. Like this . . . and like this . . ._ And then suddenly everything reached critical mass and turned to gold, and the pain went away, leaving me wide-eyed and panting, belly to the ground with my wings and tail sagging and my chin resting on my talons. 

"Are you all right?" my mate asked, brows beetled together in a frown. It was odd to see him looking so small. 

"Exhausted," I replied—in Draconic, because it was a much easier language to speak in this form. "But I'm not hurt. It was more difficult than I expected, though. Letting the energies mix passively doesn't work—they have to be actively controlled. Just in case you ever intend to try something like this again." I used a special form of "you" that was reserved only for one's mate, wondering if he knew the word. 

"Who else do you think I would trust with that kind of power?" he responded in the same language, using the same pronoun for me as I had for him, and I felt my jaw ease open in a silly little grin. Even in human form, his voice was deep enough to make the words sound right. 

"No one that I know of right now, but that doesn't mean there won't ever be anyone. You know better than I do that eternity is a long time." I shook out my wings and folded them back into place. 

"Little dragon, there could never possibly be another like you." 

Dragons can't blush. Instead, I snaked out my tongue and touched the tip of it to his lips. I was a bit startled when he parted them, more so when he drew as much as he could of my tongue inside. 

It turned out that I could kiss in my natural form after all. Who ever would have thought? 

"I don't even know if I have more power than I did before." With our tongues no longer in contact, I butted my head against his chest, and sighed in quiet pleasure as his hands—so small! How could they be so small?—found the sensitive places along my jaw and around my earholes. 

"Oh, you do, little dragon. Believe me, you do. The density of your astral form's gone up visibly. And . . . well . . . look at yourself." 

I lifted my head and curved my neck so that I could look at my body. At first, there didn't seem to be anything much different: lean, dark-scaled torso and feathered wings, long tail with a tufted tip, talons needing to be filed a bit because I didn't look after them properly. It wasn't until Gaav made the hovering Lighting spell duck down behind his shoulder that I noticed the shimmer of luminescent gold powdering my scales. 

"So much for being stealthy in the dark," I said. "Not that a grown dragon can be very stealthy to begin with. I hope this has other benefits." 

Gaav shrugged. "We won't know that for a while, I guess. Think you can change? We can spend the night out here if we have to, but inside's likely to be more comfortable. Tomorrow's going to be tedious enough without waking up cold and stiff and cranky." 

"I'll try." First, I gave my entire body an experimental little wiggle, checking that everything was in working order, and it did seem to be. Then I called in my power, trying to pretend that nothing was different from the last time, or the time before that. Really, I was a little surprised when everything went smoothly and left me standing human-ankle-deep in rain-wet grass. Naked, since I hadn't even tried to conjure up new clothes. At least my skin didn't seem to be glowing the way my scales had. I scowled and did my best to pretend that nothing was wrong. I could have tried to conjure some clothes, but exhausted and shaky as I was, I doubted it was a good idea right now. 

_THUD!_ The sound from behind me came with a wave of shock and embarrassment, and I realized that Zelgadis had just lost control of his Ray Wing and crashed. 

There was a rustle, and I blinked at my mate, who was taking off his coat. When he wrapped it around me, it was long enough that the skirts brushed the ground. 

"Better?" he asked. 

It was Zelgadis who answered. "Much. Seeing a human, or someone who looks like a human, necking with a dragon was bad enough. Seeing Val standing casually around in the altogether and you taking your clothes off made me afraid you to were going to . . ." His voice trailed off, but he was embarrassed enough to turn that beautiful shade of purple. The fall had ground dirt into the knees of his trousers. 

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's too cold and wet out here, and like I told that bandit, we don't give free shows." I smirked, good humour restored. 

"Do you really have any information for me, or did you just bring me out here to mess with my head?" 

"Trust me, I don't want you around that badly." The pockets of the coat, I discovered, were too far down for me to stuff my hands in them easily. Oh, well. "Did Ryan tell you how he ended up following us around?" 

"It was Kellelan who told me, actually, in between pestering me to find out how he could get himself chimerized." 

I scowled. "Shit, I thought he'd given up on that." Although on reflection, I should have known better. I might have changed since those days of false childhood, but Kel had no reason to do the same. "About Ryan, though . . . he did mention there was a Mazoku involved? In Gyria City?" 

"Yes . . ." 

"Well. The thing we lack most at the moment is information." I glanced at Gaav. He was frowning, but didn't seem inclined to interrupt. "Neither of us recognized that Mazoku's power signature. We have no idea who he is, who he's working for, or whether his presence in the area was accidental or . . . due to intent. If you can find that out before we do, it's definitely worth something to us. Maybe not enough on its own to exchange for your cure, but do something similar a few times, with information of sufficient value . . ." I shrugged. "It's going to be a while before we can fully rebuild our intelligence network, and neither of us likes stumbling around blind." 

"Do you agree with that? _Gaav-sama_?" Zelgadis grimaced as he spoke the honourific, but he did get it out. "I'm trying to make a deal with you, not with your boyfriend." 

"Val's telling the truth about information being of value to us. Get enough of it, and I'll agree to the exchange." 

"Fine. That's all I wanted to know. Pokota and I will go on to Gyria City ahead of everyone in the morning." 

I nodded—it wouldn't be hard for someone of Zelgadis' stamina to outdistance the wagon. Hell, I still wasn't sure why he'd flagged us down this morning. Had he been looking for . . . companionship? Beyond what Pokota had to offer? 

"Okay, if that's settled, then let's get back to bed." Gaav suddenly grabbed me and lifted me off my feet, cradling me in his arms as though I weighted nothing. 

I punched his shoulder. "Just what the fuck do you think you're doing?!" 

"Carrying you back to the inn." 

"I can walk," I growled. 

"Barefoot, in this crap?" 

"You could make me some shoes. Or teleport us." 

"I could, but this is more fun." My mate had his familiar teasing smirk plastered across his face, and I sighed and gave in. Really, it was . . . nice, being held against him, wrapped in his coat, surrounded by his scent and his warmth and his astral pressure. I just felt I would have looked weak if I hadn't complained. 

It was all so silly in some ways. Posturing, bristling at each other, keeping up appearances that we both knew fooled no one. Filia would probably have rolled her eyes and said something about _males_. 

"You're supposed to wait until after the wedding to carry me across the threshold, you know," I joked as he opened the door to the inn's common room. 

"Really? Must be a human thing. And why would we need to get married, anyway? We both know how worthless that shit is. _We_ know we're together for good, and it isn't like either of us has any relatives who need the fucking dog-and-pony-show to make them happy." Since neither of us had ever had relatives who could possibly have been happy with such a union under any circumstances. 

Inside, the fire in the fireplace had burned down, and the building was dark. I think Gaav used his astral senses more than his eyesight to find and climb the stairs. I was too tired to decipher the fine details of the other plane, which was foreign to me even after a thousand years of letting it impinge on my awareness. Easier to just relax and let it all smear together and rely on the one person I truly trusted to look after me. 

Upstairs, he turned back the quilt, laid me down on the bed, and unwrapped the coat. His smirk had softened to something that might almost have been described as a goofy grin, ocean-blue eyes soft and almost warm. He looked . . . relieved. 

"Were you that worried?" I asked, knowing in the moment I did so that it might not be a good idea, but exhaustion had made me loosen my control on my tongue. 

He scowled. "Of course I was fucking worried, you idiot dragon! I . . . you . . ." He closed his eyes, and a shudder ran through him. "It's part of the price," he said, more quietly. 

"Price?" 

"For having you here. It doesn't work if it doesn't go two ways. Love, or whatever you want to call it." He grimaced for a moment as though he'd bitten into something sour. "I figured that out a long time ago. It took you to make me see why I should give a fuck, though. Especially given how hard the painful parts suck." 

"Gaav . . ." I honestly didn't know what to say. I don't think I would have even if I'd been completely awake. 

"I thought it was the right thing to do. You wanted it. I wanted it. But when I saw you there tonight, half-crazy with pain but too damned stubborn to scream . . . Fuck. _Fuck._ I'm not _built_ for this, Val." 

His hand was still poised in mid-air above me. I grabbed it with both of mine. 

"I'm never going to leave you again," I said firmly. "I don't even care if you command me to. Not this time. You're my mate, and I'll live and die by your side. Neither of us is going to lose the other. _Ever,_ " I emphasized. 

The smile that bloomed on his face then was lopsided, almost wry. "I'd say that you didn't know just what the world tries to do to promises like that . . . but then I remember who I'm talking to. My stubborn little dragon. Who may know more about loss than anyone else I've ever met, but doesn't know when to give up." 

"Giving up is for the weak," I growled. 

"Your eyes flash when you say things like that, you know. Like they're full of lightning." 

"And you like that." I could tell from the way the corner of his mouth slanted and his eyes went all heavy-lidded. 

"A lot. But doing anything about it right now probably isn't a good idea. You need to rest." He bent and planted a quick kiss on each of my hands. "Now, roll off my coat so I can get it out of the way. I'll join you as soon as I've got my clothes off." 

I rolled to one side, and he extracted the garish yellow coat. Then I watched the way his muscles bunched and flexed as he stripped, smiling fuzzily. Even in human form, he was gorgeous. _I picked a good one, didn't I? Despite everything._

I drifted off to sleep in his arms, feeling almost at peace with the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part 2, more or less.


	18. Chapter 18

Gyria City is the capital of Dils, although you'd never know it by looking at it. It's much smaller than the great cities of Elmekia, much less those outside the old barrier. 

You'd never know it had once been under Mazoku control, either, although after he'd tangled with Lina Inverse, Dynast had pulled out of there so fast he'd probably left his toothbrush behind. Any damage the city had suffered in that incident had long since been repaired, and the red tile roofs glowed in the sun as the wagon plodded steadily down the hill toward the city gates. 

There were no less than three different sets of guards at the gates, dressed in pale green, burgundy, and navy blue with hot pink trim respectively. 

"The fuck . . . ?" Gaav muttered beside me. 

It took me a moment to remember. "They have three kings. Well, two kings and a queen. So there are three different city guard forces, three different royal guard forces, and for all I know, three different armies. They couldn't figure out who the legitimate heir was after Dynast turned their last real king into a meatball with Raugnut Rushavna, so they decided to go with a sort of committee instead, and do major business by majority vote. From what I understand, it doesn't actually work any worse than most other arrangements." 

"Except that it probably triples the amount of court intrigue. Sometimes I wonder if humans could get any stupider." 

It was Foltig who snorted—Erig was currently driving. "You might be surprised. Every time I think I've seen the dumbest thing a guy could do, someone manages to come up with something dumber. Usually in six months or less. So far the militia guy who got his foot crushed trying to screw a pack donkey takes the record, but it's about time for someone else to come along." 

"Ick! I did _not_ need to know about that," Kellelan said. Since Zelgadis had left four days ago, he had returned to something almost resembling his normal behaviour, although he wouldn't talk to me, and he kept giving Gaav and I odd looks. His emotions suggested uncertainty. Or at least I thought they did. One unexpected consequence of combining my dragon and Mazoku powers was that I could now sense positive and neutral emotions a lot more clearly. The problem was that I had no idea _what_ I was sensing, exactly—it's difficult to figure out which taste sensation goes with which emotion. With the dark emotions, I'd had other Mazoku to instruct me. With this, I was on my own, unless I wanted to steal Valwin's hat and hold it hostage until he agreed to help me sort it out. 

Other than that, I still wasn't sure what I could do with my new Chaos Power that I hadn't been able to do with Mazoku or dragon power alone . . . although just having both sets of abilities working smoothly and without pain was a pleasure in and of itself. How many nights down the centuries had I spent dreaming about that? Of being able to be both of the things I was, instead of just one of them at a time, with the other causing me constant pain? 

The line to actually get through the gate, although it was moving briskly, was long, which meant we had a while to wait. 

"Nobody here is wanted for anything in Gyria, right?" Foltig said, looking as though it hadn't occurred to him before. 

" _Wanted?_ " Ryan asked, sounding scandalized. 

"It's a common hazard of the adventuring and mercenary professions," I said. "Nothing for us, I don't think—at least, nothing current." There probably were a couple of warrants out for my arrest, actually—one in Elmekia, one down near Tiorenze in the outer world—but I doubted very much that they'd made their way up here, and even if they had, they'd describe me as looking several years younger and wearing sorcerer's robes, which should be enough to protect me. 

The line snaked forward until our left-hand cart-horse practically had its muzzle down the front of a burgundy jacket. 

"Business in Gyria City?" The guard yawned as punctuation. 

"Mercenaries escorting three civilians," Erig said easily. "We're rejoining our troop here." 

"Any mages?" 

"Why d'you ask?" Erig looked dumb, which never seemed to be a stretch for him. 

"His Majesty's looking for a specific mage," the guard replied with a grimace. "Some guy named Valgaav. No one knows why, but we've been told to ask about him wherever we can." 

I controlled the jerk of surprise. _What?_ None of the kings of Dils should have any reason to know I existed, as far as I was aware. I didn't look very sorcerous right now, but after I'd turned my clothes to ash I'd chosen to revert to something more like the outfit I'd worn a century ago, and I doubted that switching the light shoes for ankle boots and removing the wrist-wrap would be enough to obscure the resemblance if those were the clothes in whatever description the guard had. I needed to avoid drawing attention. 

Several of the people around me radiated surprise: Erig, Foltig, Hen-chan. Not Kel or Ryan, though. An interesting intelligence test. 

" _Which_ majesty?" Erig asked brightly. 

The guard sighed. "Out-of-towners! This is King Zilstan's uniform." 

"Zilstan, right. So if I run into this Valgaav guy, I'll tell him your king wants to say hello." 

"Approach him with caution," the guard warned. "We're told he's dangerous. City-destroying levels of dangerous." The guard wasn't nervous, though. He was bored. 

"Ah, he's probably a nice guy who picks up stray kittens and finds homes for them," Erig said. 

The guard snorted. "More likely he eats them. The toll is one copper piece for each person, five for each horse, and a bronze for the cart . . . Thanks. You're free to go. Enjoy your stay in Gyria City." 

Erig snapped the reins, and the horses set off at an amble. We passed through the gate, and— 

_What the hell is this?_

Gyria City was full of Mazoku essence. Despite the astral fog following Gaav around, I could sense almost a dozen signatures in the gate plaza alone. A couple of them were even Mazoku that I'd known. And the ward sigil over the gate, part of a network defining the city wall as a barrier to keep this from leaking out, belonged to . . . 

"Rashatt," Gaav said aloud. "Guess he wasn't dead after all." 

Foltig's eyes narrowed. "I'd ask what you're talking about, but I have a feeling I wouldn't like the answer." 

"Rashatt was—or rather, _is_ , I guess—a high-ranked Mazoku under Chaos Dragon Gaav, then under Hellmaster," I said. "There are a _lot_ of Mazoku here, for some reason. I would have known if I'd passed through here on my way into the country, but I came up from the south." 

"And . . . 'Valgaav'?" 

I shrugged. "I haven't used that name since before I . . . got egged. 'Val' is a very traditional dragon name, given in honour of the Airlord. The Dragon Gods have never done shit for me, though, and I . . . went through some very bad periods." All true, but none of it having to do with the real reason I'd had that name. 

Gaav's hand had been resting on my knee. He squeezed it now, lightly, in reassurance. 

"Rashatt's probably been trying to trace me," I added. "We were . . . acquainted. But I'd rather not contact him until I have some idea who he's serving now and what he's doing here." 

"Why assume he's serving anyone?" Hen-chan asked. 

Gaav snorted. "Because normal Mazoku are just made that way." 

"And you're not?" Kel's question had an edge to it. 

"Not anymore. Being stuck with this fucking meatsack gets on my nerves, but there are a few advantages." 

"How did that happen, anyway?" Hen-chan again. 

"Awfully curious, aren't you, brat?" 

"Is there any real reason for you _not_ to tell me?" The little mage really had come a long way from when he'd been blushing and stuttering at me. Although maybe it helped that he didn't find Gaav attractive. Or at least, I didn't think he did. What the hell was a flavour like halibut in cheese sauce supposed to tell me about how he was feeling? 

"Under the circumstances, the less you know about our business, the better," my mate said flatly. "Val's history with Rashatt is ugly, mine is complicated, and now that we know he's here, we're going to have to talk to him at some point. Trust me, you don't want to get caught in the middle . . . although if we end up doing some kind of shitty small-scale re-enactment of the Kouma War, you might not have much choice." 

Foltig and Hen-chan blanched. Surprisingly, so did Kel. And Jillas jerked awake. 

"Is that . . . likely?" Foltig asked. 

My mate shrugged. "Depends on what we find." We exchanged a grim look. He probably recognized more of the city's unexpected Mazoku inhabitants than I did, but even I could tell that most of them had been Hellmaster's. Which told us exactly nothing about who they were working for now. If they'd been picked up by one of the other Dark Lords, the consequences could be messy, but if they'd somehow ended up with a human master, those consequences might become unimaginable. With the Dark Lords, we would at least know what goal they were ultimately working towards. Humans, however, were free to choose. They could want anything. "If it turns out that they're still following the Mazoku agenda . . . well, I've gotten kind of attached to this fucked-up world." 

Foltig frowned and ran a hand over his shaven scalp. "I'd ask how we can help, but I think I need to talk to the captain about this. This isn't just a side-job anymore, and I don't know if he's up for saving the world. Especially without pay." 

"You'd ignore something this important because you weren't getting any _money_ out of it?" Kel sounded scandalized. _Was I ever that naive?_

"Kid, we don't know it's important yet, and fighting for pay is what we _do_. If we start giving away freebies, then we won't be able to make a living. And the captain will have me spit-roasted if Daveed doesn't." 

"I don't like it either," Hen-chan said, "but . . . well . . . your dad's a smith, right? Would he just _give_ one of his swords away, even if whoever was asking for it claimed he was fighting for something noble?" 

"If I think I have a use for you, I can come up with the money," Gaav said, ignoring the mage. 

Foltig grunted. I wasn't sure whether it was affirmation, negation, or just irritation. Judging from the flavour of his emotions, he might not have known himself. "Still, I'd like you to meet the captain. If you don't mind. Gavrik-sama." 

A bushy red eyebrow rose. "Why the sudden respect?" 

"Because whoever you really are, you've got to be more than just one step up from a brass demon, or you wouldn't be so calm about taking on this Rashatt plus an unknown number of other Mazoku. I mean, you're worried and you're irritated, but you're not _afraid_. And you have . . . the habit of command, I guess you'd call it. The kind of attitude that makes people do what you tell them to, and only realize that you didn't have the right to boss them around after they've done it." Foltig's grin was rueful. "I've done it a couple of times myself since you joined us. Just followed your orders without thinking, I mean." 

Gaav grinned. "Shows you've got good sense. Well, one place in Gyria's as good as another for now. As for your captain . . . we're going to have to start asking people questions eventually. No reason we can't start with him. Unless you've got some contacts here you haven't told me about, little dragon." 

I shook my head. "I can try the Sorcerer's Guild, maybe, since I never did get around to burning those damned stupid robes, but I don't know anyone there in particular. Jillas? Do you know anyone in town? Commercial contacts of Filia's, maybe?" 

"Nah, she's always bought stuff from this far north through a middle-man, Valgaav-sama. Sorry." 

It felt weirdly comfortable to hear Jillas calling me by my real name. _Just like old times, I guess._

"Fine, then. We'll find a ship out of here for you and Kel tomorrow. No reason you should be stuck risking your necks along with us." I just hoped I had enough money to pay for it, or that Gaav was forthcoming. 

Kel's head jerked up. "You can't just send us away!" 

"The hell I can't!" I snapped. "You naive little brat, do you think I have the time to look after you? I want you out of the way." That way I wouldn't have to deal with the faint sick feeling in my gut whenever I thought about Kel laid out dead in front of me like a dragonet tumbled from his smashed egg . . . It seemed that there was still a bit of the hatchling left in me after all. Kel's death would be easier on me than Jillas', though. I'd known the fox for a long, long time, both as Val Ul Copt and as Valgaav. He was . . . family. 

Gravos had been too, I realized, and although the big part-troll had died peacefully of old age, I still got the faint, stinging feeling that I'd failed him. The sense that if I'd had my full power and knowledge at the time he died, I could have . . . what? Changed him into a Mazoku chimera? When I'd never even thrown a spawn? 

"I'm not going! If you put me on a ship out of here, I'll just jump right back off!" 

I snarled and lunged up off the bench to hit him, but Foltig got there first. 

"Val is right—you're a brat," the shaven-headed mercenary told the half-elf, who was now nursing a good-sized bruise on his cheekbone. "What good do you think you can do by staying here? What help can you offer that outweighs the amount of worry you're going to cause your friend? Stop acting like a child!" 

"If you prefer, you can stick it out in jail," Gaav-sama added. "At least then you won't be poking your nose in where it doesn't belong and stirring things up that we're not ready to deal with." 

Kel's eyes opened wide. "You wouldn't." 

"Why not? Framing someone for theft usually takes all of ten minutes. The only reason I haven't suggested slitting your throat and dumping the fucking corpse in the harbour is that it would hurt Val if I actually went through with it." 

Kel stared at us for a moment. Then he bowed his head, his hands lowering to grip the bench, and took several deep breaths. 

"I'm a fair swordsman, you know," he said, and for the first time in a while, he sounded calm, although his emotions were still a tasty mixture of anger and fear. "I may not be able to cast spells, but I know a fair amount _about_ magic and Mazoku. I'm not completely useless. And I'm not asking to be paid." 

"Kel . . ." I sighed in exasperation. "Could you kill a man? In cold blood?" 

"Do you really expect that kind of thing to . . . be necessary?" 

I was starting to get just a little ticked off—why wouldn't he _listen_? "Get it through your head: We're not heroes. Murdering someone might turn out to be _necessary_ , or it might turn out just to be expedient. If we think it's the best way, we'll do it. Are you starting to understand yet? We're talking about a side skirmish in the Shinma War, the War of Gods and Monsters. It began when the world was created, it never really stopped, and mortal morality doesn't figure into it." 

"Val." I was probably the only one who heard the hint of a warning tone in Gaav's voice. "That's probably a bit premature. For all we know, they might just have taken refuge here." 

"Sorry. I didn't mean to get carried away." 

Ryan cleared his throat and said in a tiny voice, "Um . . . could you let me off here? Please?" 

That just made me even angrier at myself: the realization that I'd just blown up in front of someone who was even less part of any of this than Kel or Foltig or Jillas. The others were at least here by choice. Ryan had just been trying to get home. 

"Stop the wagon," Gaav said, in a crisp, carrying tone of voice. Then he turned and unfurled a tendril of his power, wrapping it around Ryan. "You remember nothing of the last few minutes," he told the clerk. "Since we passed through the gate, you've been daydreaming about finally getting home, and not paying any attention to our conversation." 

"I've been daydreaming about getting home," the clerk repeated, eyes slightly glazed. 

"Now, go," my mate ordered, and the clerk shouldered his meagre belongings and swung down from the back of the wagon. 

"Nifty trick," Foltig said, in a tone that was far too neutral. 

The corner of Gaav's mouth turned up. "Not one I use very often, though. It needs a delicate touch, and I'm not a delicate kind of guy. You got something to say, fox?" 

Jillas had been staring into the middle distance with a serious expression on his face. Now he visibly gathered himself. "Only that I'm not gonna leave either, Gavrik-sama." 

" _What?_ " 

To Jillas' credit, he barely flinched, although I'd swear his fur went several shades lighter. "I swore I'd serve Valgaav-sama, and that's what I'm gonna do. To the bitter end. Besides, it isn't like 's a big deal if I finally join Boss Gravos. M'wife's dead these fifteen years, and our kids're grandparents themselves. They don't need me . . . but I know you and Valgaav-sama can always use someone to do the boring bits, and no one ever notices old folks much. If I've got 'nother good year or two, I'd like to spend 'em being useful. And unlike the young'uns, I was part of that Darkstar business, so I know what I'm getting into." 

"Hmph. Well. You're Val's servant, so I'll let him decide what to do with you." 

_Damn._ Was it worse to force the fox to do something he really didn't want to do, or risk finding his shattered body in an alleyway some morning very soon? But I wouldn't . . . I couldn't . . . 

"Come along if you like—it would be too much work to stop you," I said, hoping the hesitation hadn't been too noticeable. 

"Thank you, Valgaav-sama." 

"So all I have to do to get your approval is brown-nose and call you by some name you haven't used since before I was born?" Kel growled at the floorboards. 

"All you have to do is display some indication that you really know what kind of risk you'll be taking," I snapped. "You don't even know what 'dying' means. Not really." 

"Fuck you," Kel growled, and then fell silent again. 

That tense silence continued as the wagon wound its way through the streets to one particular corner of the city where a half-dozen inns, a trio of large barracks buildings, and a couple of open lots strewn with sand all clustered together. The barracks bore the royal crest of Dils, in pale green, burgundy, and dark-blue-and-pink, respectively. 

"City guard?" I asked, gesturing in the direction of the building with the green insignia. 

"Yeah—we all share the same training fields," Foltig replied. "It's easier that way—and they get money for maintenance by charging use fees." 

The inn Erig pulled up in front of was called The Laughing Orc, and the sign showed a squat little creature chuckling uneasily while looking up at a vague figure with a very large sword. Typical warrior humour. At least they'd put a loincloth on the orc. 

"End of the line," the merc reported cheerfully. "Everybody out, so I can take this thing around back." 

"We'll want to sell it," Gaav said, "but tomorrow should be soon enough." He stretched as best he could in the confined space, with several joints making crackling or popping sounds. 

"I'll take care of it, Gavrik-sama," Jillas said. Making himself useful already, just like he'd tried to do in the old days. Well, I didn't _think_ there was any way he could get into trouble selling a wagon. Of course, I'd thought that before, but old age had given Jillas enough wisdom and judgement to fill . . . a small soup bowl. Maybe. 

Inside, The Laughing Orc was about what I would have expected: clean but battered, furnished with tables and backless benches of heavy wood, with a few people drinking and a loud dice game going on in one corner. Savoury smells came from somewhere out back, and there was a chalkboard giving prices for wine, beer, brandy, tea, coffee, "nibblers", bread and cheese, and stew. And the lone barmaid had her bodice unlaced in front, displaying a generous, freckle-splashed bosom. 

She approached us as soon as she'd deposited the mugs she'd been carrying at the table with the dice game. "Can I help you folks?" 

"Is Captain Konalt's troop staying here again?" Foltig asked. 

The woman blinked several times. "Oh, I recognize you now—sorry, but your big friend there's kind of . . . distracting. Yes, your captain took the usual set of rooms. He had us hold one for you and your cousin, too. I'll get the key for you." 

"He's probably not in his room at this time of day, but did he happen to mention where he was going?" Foltig asked as she wandered back toward the kitchen door. 

It wasn't the barmaid who answered, but a bearded man seated at one of the tables. "Konalt pulled a guard contract with the moneylenders' guild—two weeks' term while some of their guys recover from the Blue-Spotted Fever or some shit like that. You could try there." 

"Thanks," Foltig said. 

So half an hour later, we found ourselves outside an imposing stone building on the palace-side edge of the merchants' district. One of the guards on the door was a vaguely-familiar wolf-man. The other was Sorrel, who immediately dropped his decorative-guardsman pose and stepped forward to ruffle Hen-chan's hair. 

"Good to see you in one piece, kiddo—we were starting to think that something had happened," the bearded merc said. 

"We got there just in time for a local festival," Foltig explained. "And we figured that since Val and his partner were headed up this way anyway, we might as well wait the extra day or two until they were ready. Plus, there was a bit of an . . . incident at the festival. I really need to talk to the captain." 

Sorrel blinked. "So you _are_ Val. I wasn't sure." 

"I'm thinking of getting my name tattooed on my forehead," I muttered, rolling my eyes. "You guys seem to be doing well for yourselves, at least. This is Gavrik, my partner," I added, with an appropriate gesture. 

Sorrel looked Gaav up—and up, and up—and down. "Well, fuck me." 

"Not a chance," my mate said, with a smirk. "Even if Val didn't get nasty when he's jealous, you're not my type." 

The werewolf holding up the opposite side of the doorway snorted. 

Sorrel gave an elaborate shrug. "You know what they say about the ones with the really big swords, anyway." 

Now it was my turn to smirk. "Trust me, that isn't his problem." 

"Get too mouthy and we'll take it out of your hazard pay," Gaav added. "Which is the other reason we need to see your captain." 

Sorrel blinked. "You mean you've got it? The whole thousand?" 

"The whole thousand. What, you thought I wasn't good for it?" I gave him a mock-injured look. 

Perhaps wisely, Sorrel chose not to answer that one. "Last I saw of the captain, he was at the security office, playing lieutenant. Once you're through the front door, head left along the wall until you find a door marked 'Authorized personnel only', then . . ." 

The security office turned out to be on the third floor. I was surprised until I realized that the basement was probably given over to money vaults. 

Konalt was sitting at a paper-piled desk in a corner, while another man, middle-aged, paunchy, and with the look of a warrior who was going to seed, occupied the larger desk in the middle of the room. Except that the stranger wasn't human. I could smell the stench of Hellmaster's kin from the doorway as he stared at us with wide eyes. 

"Maulk," Gaav named him, and the "guard captain" immediately dropped his human semblance, becoming something with waxy skin, a single, kidney-shaped eye, and a mouth far too large. The astral shook as the lesser Mazoku tried to withdraw his projection from the physical plane, only to be stopped by the power of a Dark Lord. Then everything darkened subtly as space twisted around us, isolating the three of us from the rest of the building. "Fancy finding you here. Now, I've got a few questions. And you're going to answer them."


	19. Chapter 19

Maulk swallowed visibly. "Gaav-sama . . ." 

"At least you're smart enough to give respect," my mate said. "Keep it up and you might just get out of here in one piece." 

"Yes, lord." 

"Who presently holds your allegiance?" 

"General Rashatt, lord." 

"Hmph. And who holds _Rashatt's_ allegiance?" 

"Lord, I do not know." 

Gaav had felt the tremor in the lesser Mazoku's emotions, the deepening of his fear, as clearly as I had, because he said, "Don't give me that shit. He might not have told you, but you should be able to tell if he smells of anyone other than me and Hellmaster. _You_ still stink of Phibby." 

"Lord . . . I cannot . . . He smells only of you and of my master who died. There is nothing else." 

"Are all the other Mazoku in this city sworn to Rashatt?" 

"All that I know of, lord." 

"Hmph. Val? Anything you want to ask?" 

I nodded and took a step forward. "Do you know of a humanoid Mazoku who uses a cloak to conceal his appearance and has a difficult time moving his right side? He may be a spawn recently thrown by Rashatt." 

"I do not," Maulk replied. His fear was starting to recede. He was thinking that he might survive this. 

"Will you swear yourself to me?" Gaav asked, and the balance of Maulk's emotions changed: fear again, and hot anger. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You must have known that would be a condition of your survival. I can't have you running back to Rashatt to blab your mouth off before I've had a chance to discipline him." 

Fatalism has an odd flavour. There are echoes of fear in it, but it's much more subtle, sweet and floral. It doesn't mix well with anger, or with hate. 

"I will not follow a renegade who sought the destruction of Ruby-Eye-sama." 

"And yet you'll follow my spawn?" 

"General Rashatt chose Hellmaster-sama over you. He redeemed himself. I see no evidence that you've returned to our side. I had rather die than serve you. You're a traitor, a _failure_ who was never worthy of—" 

A deep, draconic growl rumbled through the room as Gaav grabbed the lesser Mazoku by the face. 

"Trying to piss me off, are you? Wasted effort. I was always going to kill you quickly—Phibby was the one who liked torturing things that didn't fight back, never me. I don't need to impress Val, and no one else is ever going to know exactly what happened to you. Pretty soon, no one will remember that Maulk ever existed. It's a lousy way to die. And it's what Ruby-Eye wants for all of us." 

Maulk laughed, an odd, high-pitched sound. "Then it's all I've ever wanted for myself as well." 

"Then you're as fucking crazy as Phibby was." Gaav scowled. 

I felt the moment at which he started to pull the energy out of Maulk's body, although nothing visual happened for a moment, and even when it did, it wasn't spectacular. The lesser Mazoku just turned to dust, and Gaav, after a moment, dusted off his hand on the skirts of his coat, then stuffed it in a pocket. 

"Not even worth the trouble," he grumbled. 

I touched his arm. I could feel the tension in his muscles, even though his face gave away nothing more than minor irritation. 

"Why so angry?" I asked. 

He shook his head. "It just pisses me off. That they can't see. That they won't see. An entire race bent on suicide. It's so fucking stupid. And it disgusts me to know that I used to be just like them." 

"You just didn't know that there was something in this world that was worth preserving, back then." 

Gaav grinned, but the look in his eyes was unexpectedly tender. "Yeah, it took me a while to figure that one out." 

He leaned down to kiss me, and my eyes widened. _Me? Was it really me?_ True, he hadn't begun plotting to destroy Lei Magnus until after I'd taken him as my mate, but I'd always thought that those plans were just an extension of his basic goal of _survival_. I'd never imagined that he might have wanted, even a little, to save the world for my sake. 

"I love you," I whispered just as our lips were about to meet, and those ocean-blue eyes widened just a bit. Had he thought I didn't return it? When he'd already said that word to me? Or maybe he just didn't think I'd have the balls to admit it to his face . . . but only once have I been a coward, fleeing from the goldens for my life and leaving my people behind, and it had hurt me so badly that I'd promised myself I would never do it again. 

The kiss was more slow and tender than passionate, and afterwards he let me hold him close for a moment, breath mingling with breath. 

"I should let the space untwist soon," he said, sounding reluctant. "Before someone notices." 

I let go of him and took a step back, knowing that that was what he was waiting for, and he let the physical plane resume its normal geometry around us. I blinked against the suddenly-brighter light, and an exasperated voice assaulted my ears. 

"—don't care what—" Konalt stopped speaking in mid-sentence. "So glad you could rejoin us, gentlemen. Now, would one of you _please_ tell me, in short, simple words, exactly what the _hell_ is going on here?" 

"Gyria City is infested with Mazoku," my mate said bluntly. "At least a couple of dozen, one of them pretty high-ranking. I'd guess that they're looking to take the place over, but I'm not sure why they'd pick here in particular—maybe they thought the disruption from having three rulers would let them get away with more. Either way, it looks like the money-lenders' guild was a very minor part of their plans." 

"So you're saying that Maulk is a Mazoku? Or is that 'was'?" 

"It's 'was'," Gaav said evenly. "He used to be a minor minion of Hellmaster. The little shit wouldn't tell us who he was ultimately serving these days. Killing him was safer than letting word get back to his master's master, whoever that turns out to be, that Val and I are here and poking around." 

Konalt raised both eyebrows. "And that justifies murder?" 

My mate rolled his eyes. "Look, whatever reason these assholes have for being in Gyria City, I guarantee it isn't fucking benign, all right? It might just be self-interested, in which case I'll decide what to do after I find out the details. But if they're following Ruby-Eye's old agenda of returning the world to the Sea of Chaos, then they can kiss their asses good-bye, because I won't stand for it." 

" _You_ won't stand for it?" Erig muttered in the background. Foltig shut him up with an elbow sharply applied to his ribs. 

The mercenary captain scowled. "I don't want my men mixed up in this. Hell, I'm still trying to figure out how we got so _close_ to getting mixed up in this in the first place." 

"Extreme bad luck," I said. "None of us knew when I hired you to look for that temple that Gyria City was in this kind of state, or that we'd all end up here. If I'd known I'd end up dragging a bunch of ordinary humans into this crap, I'd have searched the swamp alone. As things stand, it's probably best if you get out of the city as fast as you can after we hand over your hazard pay." 

Konalt audibly ground his teeth. "If I break our contract now, we may never get a job in this country again. Plus, in case you hadn't noticed, _someone_ here is likely to be accused of Maulk's murder, and somehow I have a feeling that you two already know how to wiggle out of it. Which leaves me and my men, or your . . . friends." 

"We'll arrange it so that he's seen leaving the building," Gaav said. "Since there's no body, that should be enough." 

"Worst case, we can say I did it," Jillas added. 

Erig snickered. "And just how do you expect to make anyone believe that, old-timer? He wasn't drinking anything, so you couldn't have poisoned his tea—" 

Jillas shook his head and made a hand motion. Even I didn't see the gun until it was already digging into Erig's ribs. "I figured out when I was a young fox that I couldn't win fights by waving a sword around, so I learned a different way. Hit the heart or the brain or an artery, and your man's gone faster than you can find someone to cast Resurrection. Even now, 's difficult for me to miss with the gun shoved right up against someone like this, and it muffles the noise, too. Why did you think they're called 'Jillas guns' in these parts, anyway?" 

"It's true," I said in response to the mercenaries' incredulous stares. "Jillas invented and perfected the six-shooter, and did a lot of development work in cannon and rockets. Even now, his designs are considered some of the best and most reliable in the world. Don't underestimate him. But I'm surprised you're willing to go to jail over this," I added to the fox. 

Jillas put his pistol away. "If 's for you, Valgaav-sama, I'll do it. I've never repaid you for saving my life, not really. If Boss Gravos were here, he'd feel the same." 

_Jillas . . ._ "It won't come to that," I said. "We'll protect you." _Guess I'm getting sentimental in my old age._

The fox sniffled, and tears appeared in his good eye. "Valgaav-sama . . ." 

I rolled my eyes. "Aren't you a little old to still be doing that?" 

"Ah, sorry, sorry!" He produced a large handkerchief from somewhere, and blew his nose with a loud honk. "I'm fine." 

The silence that followed was quickly filled by a _clank-clunk_. Gaav had just dropped a drawstring leather bag on the desk by Konalt's elbow. 

"That's a thousand gold exactly. Which should settle our accounts with you. And I meant what I said about getting out of Gyria City. Sooner or later, this place is going to become a battlefield, and right now I'm betting on 'sooner'." 

The skirts of Gaav's coat swirled about his legs as he turned, and Erig outright flinched out of his path, with no humour in his eyes at all. I fell in behind my mate, looking neither left nor right as we left the room. I could feel Kel, confused and resentful, following us, and hear the thump of Jillas' cane. 

Gaav produced an illusion of Maulk's human form when we entered the stairwell back to the main floor, and sent it on a bit ahead of us. It walked through the lobby at a crisp, don't-bother-me pace, avoiding anyone that looked like they might try to talk to it, went out through the open doors, paused for a moment at the bottom of the steps, then turned and vanished into an alley. That was that, then. 

"Kel, I hope I don't have to tell you not to discuss this with anyone," I said. 

"Of course not. I'm not a little kid, Val. And I really wish you would quit treating me like one." 

That last bit was mumbled and possibly not intended for my ears, but I responded anyway. "You still believe that the universe is basically benign and that most people you meet are kind. I was like that once too, a very long time ago, and had it battered out of me in one long, horrific night that made a corpse out of everyone I had ever known. If you stick with us, then sooner or later you're likely to have a similar experience, assuming you survive at all. That isn't something I want to happen to . . . a friend. Please, Kel, for my sake, go back to Mossport and forget you ever met me." 

"You've gotten just as bad as my parents. Eighty is old enough for me to make my own decisions!" 

"You don't have the knowledge or the judgement to make sensible decisions about this! Stop being a stubborn little fool!" I was almost vibrating with the need to take a swing at him. Again. So young and so damned certain he was right . . . 

"Valgaav-sama . . ." 

"What is it, Jillas?" I spoke sharply, not really wanting to hear from him just then. 

"'M sorry to bother you, but . . . sometimes a cub can't learn 'cept by making their own mistakes. 'S hell if you're the grown-up watching from the sidelines, but you can only push so hard before they start thinking to do whatever just to prove you wrong." The fox shrugged. 

I growled deep in my throat, and several of the other people in the street jerked their heads up, startled by the sound of an angry dragon in downtown Gyria City. Gaav rested his hand on my shoulder, comfort and caution both at once. Kel was sullen, angry, and embarrassed in roughly equal measures, and I wished I could turn my emotion-sensing off. 

"All right," I said. "I give up. Hang around and get yourself killed. I can't bring myself to care anymore. But you're responsible for your own survival, got that? Don't try to hide behind me." 

"Oh, believe me, I won't," Kel said. 

In a different quarter of the city, we found yet another small, clean-but-not-luxurious inn, and Gaav and I took a large room for ourselves and a small one for Jillas. Kel, now paying his own way, settled for a mattress in one of the dormitory rooms on the ground floor, each of which held several narrow triple-tiered bunk beds. The Snoozing Serpent, as it called itself, had no common room, but there was a restaurant three doors down that served decent enough food. 

Kel didn't join us for dinner. I hid my hurt from everyone except my mate, whose brows knitted together as he watched me, although he said nothing until we were back at the inn, alone in our room and protected by a ward which would let no one in or out. 

"You've been unhappy all evening, little dragon. What's wrong?" 

I groped for words, found, "I'd forgotten." 

"Hm?" 

"The . . . lesser relationships, if you like. Caring for someone, not as deeply as mate to mate, but just as friend to friend. I'd forgotten that they can hurt. And that you can't just make them go away by willing it." 

Gaav wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close in against him as his other hand came up to rub the back of my neck, applying light pressure to the sensitive, vulnerable nerve bundle under the skin. Possessive, but also comforting. 

"So what are you going to do?" he asked, his voice a soft, calming rumble, like the purr of a very large cat. 

"Endure," I said quietly. "Short of killing the little idiot myself, there's nothing else I _can_ do. If I'd been in my right mind, I'd never have let him get under my skin like this, but it's too late now." And even more quietly, "I just get so tired of pain, sometimes. I'd had a hundred lifetimes' worth before I even met you, and it seems like it's never, ever going to stop . . . I'm not going to give up, but I wish I could." 

"You know I can't protect you. Not from this." 

I shook my head. "It isn't protection that I want. Just holding me is good enough." _Feeling that you care . . . restores me._ "Now. More importantly, what are we going to do about what's going on in this city?" 

"Kick Rashatt's ass," my mate replied succinctly. "I'm not about to leave the disloyal little shit out and wandering around . . . and besides, from a purely practical point of view, the fewer pieces on the board, the better. We have enough enemies. In the short term, though, we still need to figure out who we're going to piss off when we do it. So the first step is to find Rashatt and watch him. It shouldn't be all that hard—we both know him backwards, forwards, and sideways. Tomorrow, we'll go out and wander around until we can get a better fix on his location than 'north-east of here somewhere'." 

"And hope we don't get spotted," I added. "Some of the Mazoku I sensed by the gate would recognize me, and I'd be surprised if all of them couldn't recognize you if they got close enough. We need some minions." 

"Mm. Too bad your fox is no good for this, but he has no astral sensitivity at all. We'd have the same problem with any other mortals we recruited. Maybe we'll come across someone less fanatical than that idiot Maulk, and be able to pull them in. Or I could start creating chimeras. Your half-elven friend might even volunteer." 

I winced. "Unfortunately, he would." 

"I've been meaning to ask—what's his story? Not an old flame, I hope." 

"Just a friend, or he was while I still didn't remember anything. He has a fascination with magic and a thimble-sized bucket capacity." 

"Hmph. Idiot." 

"You could—" I stopped in mid-sentence. "No, even if you did, that wouldn't work." 

"What were you going to say?" 

"You could throw some new spawn . . . but even if you did, they'd be recognizable as yours, and new. So you'd be giving away the fact that you're back." Which put us at risk of having the other Dark Lords chasing us around again, and that hadn't been so much fun the first time that I was anxious to do it again. 

His arm tightened around me. "Val . . . I haven't thrown any spawn at all since the Kouma War. Since Ragradia did this to me. I . . ." 

"You don't have to tell me," I told him. I didn't know what he was about to say, but if he was this hesitant, it had to be bad. 

"No, but I . . . find that I want to. I trust you completely, little dragon. With all of my secrets. This one no less than the others." He sighed, and nuzzled at my hair. "I tried a couple of times, after I . . . remade you. Twice, it gave me such a feeling of foreboding that I stopped and pulled the power back. The third time, I was pissed off at myself for giving in to a fucking _feeling_ and forced it through, but instead of turning into a Mazoku, the energy started to dissipate, and I had to grab it back. Same result the next time. After that, I didn't try again, but I was able to come to two conclusions. First, that Ragradia didn't know what the fuck she was doing to me. And second, that the fundamental nature of my power had changed. It can't maintain itself without a soul to act as a nucleus. Which was why you were a success but my attempts at creating true Mazoku were failures." 

"But that would mean . . ." Hell, I couldn't find the words. Not if I wanted to phrase it reassuringly. 

"Yeah. I don't know what the fuck I am anymore. Not Mazoku, not human, not dragon . . . although in some ways that may be the closest. Probably I'm something that was never supposed to exist." 

I blinked. "But your power was willing to stick to me . . . wouldn't it need a _human_ soul?" 

What I knew about souls would fit in a thimble, really. They don't really seem to _do_ anything, other than provide a core for astral energy to form up around. It's that astral energy that's actually the seat of memory and personality. 

Gaav shook his head. "One of the great secrets of the universe is that souls are one-size-fits-all, despite what the golden dragons would like to believe. The same one could be reborn as a human, a dragon, an elf, a beastman . . . even an orc. It's pure luck that none of the pieces of Ruby-Eye ever ended up as a dragon. Well, luck and statistics, at any rate." He snorted softly. "Phibby spent all his spare time studying souls, and he could manipulate them to some extent, but even he had no idea how they're made or what they're made of. For all he was ever able to tell, there may be a finite, constant number of them that came into being at the same time as the Four Worlds. Here's another one of the great secrets while I'm at it: the Dragon Gods don't have souls either. They're pure astral beings, spirit without a nucleus, just like Mazoku. Only mortals are supposed to have souls. And yet . . . here I am. A total fucking anomaly. You're probably the only person in this world who can understand just how much that sucks." 

"It isn't completely without its rewards," I said, leaning up to plant a kiss on his jaw. "You're the one who taught me just how vulnerable an opponent is at the moment when he's staring at you like you've grown an extra head." 

My mate chuckled. "True enough, little dragon. True enough." 

I snuggled closer to him, trying to comfort him as much as myself and wondering how long he had been holding all of that in. Even a hundred years ago, he would never have told me, and I was fairly sure that he didn't trust anyone else that much either. But since his return, he no longer held back, and the knowledge that his trust in me was now absolute made me ache with love for him. And I didn't even care that it was sappy to feel that way.


	20. Chapter 20

People who like the rain either never have to be out in it, or else they grow vegetables for a living. Usually I don't give a damn about it one way or the other, but I hadn't thought to ward the clothes I was wearing against the wet, and I couldn't stop and do it in the middle of the street, so I was damp and irritable. At least I couldn't catch cold. Or I didn't think I could. The currents of power swirling under my skin, no matter what their nature, should in theory protect me from disease, since ordinary microbes don't survive well in that kind of energy stew. 

Gyria City in the rain sprouted unexpected splashes of colour in the form of umbrellas made of oiled silk, many of them quite garish. They were carried by people of both sexes and all walks of life, and I remained wet and miserable for nearly two hours before I gave in and bought one that was the exact ocean-blue of Gaav's eyes. Given the way he smiled as I paid for it, I'm pretty sure that he noticed, but he didn't say anything, even when I held it up above both our heads so that his hair would stop being plastered down. 

We walked together through what seemed to be the wealthy part of the human city, just strolling, arm in arm, taking our time. Two teenaged girls who, like us, were sharing an umbrella, gave us slantwise looks and giggled behind their hands as they passed us. I frowned for a moment before I got it . . . then I smirked instead. _They think we're out on a date . . . well, I guess, in a sense, we are._ For the first time ever. Living among Mazoku had made it difficult to do anything alone, just the two of us . . . not that anyone could have stopped Gaav from doing whatever the hell he wanted, but every action he took had been political back then, and he'd already been in a difficult position. Even my spending the nights in his bed had had to be explained in terms a _Mazoku_ could accept. 

"Still northeast," I observed as we entered an even more luxurious part of town, where each mansion had an entire block to itself and a coat of arms over the main entrance—nobles' townhouses, clustered around the edge of the grounds of the royal palace. 

"He's latched on to someone influential. Just fucking great." 

"He might be masquerading as a guard or something." 

"Getting optimistic in your old age, little dragon?" 

I shrugged. "In his place, it's what I would do. Lie as low as possible. Of course, we've already agreed that Rashatt isn't that bright." 

"True enough . . . but I have a funny feeling that either he's King Zilstan, or the two of them are working together." 

I grimaced. "It does all fit, doesn't it? Zilstan looking for me, Rashatt somewhere in the vicinity of the palace . . . all that's missing is the identity of our mysterious midnight burglar, and the equally mysterious Mazoku who sent Ryan out to wreak havoc. Who could easily be the same person. Who could be the same person _and_ King Zilstan, for that matter, although that feels like a bit much. I mean, it took Dynast _years_ to slip himself onto the throne here . . . although I suppose Rashatt's _had_ years." I paused to dodge a puddle. "Anyway, by the time we get back to the inn, Jillas should have collected some information about Zilstan." I'd put him on that before we'd left that morning, because the incident at the gate had bothered me. 

"The other possibility is that our mystery Mazoku is working with Zilstan and they're at odds with Rashatt and looking for an edge," Gaav rumbled. "It doesn't make much sense that their first choice of an edge would be you, but this makes fuck-all in the way of sense to begin with." 

We walked in silence for several moments. Then, "Do you think you're up to accepting his invitation and going up to the palace alone?" 

"Of course I am. Why?" 

"Well, it's just that you've been living in my back pocket ever since we were reunited, little dragon. I kind of like having you there, so I haven't said anything, but . . ." 

Now that I thought about it, the longest we'd been separated for had been on that first day, when I'd gone down to the Goosedown Pillow alone to fetch breakfast and left him behind, sleeping. 

"I like being with you," I said with a shrug. _I'm happier and more comfortable when I'm sure I'm not going to wake up and find this is a dream and I'm alone again._ I wasn't going to say that, though. It would be embarrassing to admit I was still so insecure. "But that doesn't mean that the two of us being apart for a few hours is going to kill me. You want me to sound him out, don't you? Zilstan, I mean. And Rashatt, if he's there." 

"Pretty much. If they haven't found out that I'm back yet, I'd prefer that things stay that way for the time being." Gaav chuckled suddenly. "Really, if I'd realized just how much freedom of movement being dead would give me, I would have staged something convincing a long time ago. It's such a fucking relief not to have to put on a show anymore." 

"I was thinking the same thing, not ten minutes ago." The rain had petered out, and I folded the umbrella. "Let's go find some lunch, and then we can grab Jillas and decant him." 

"Is that fox actually any good at intelligence?" 

"Better than you would think. He's got a good memory, and there's a type of woman that always seems to latch on to him . . ." I smiled and shook my head, remembering an incident in Mossport about forty years ago during which Jillas had nearly been smothered by a visiting matron's . . . motherly charms. "He'll have something, even if it's just commonplace gossip." 

We _could_ have eaten at the best restaurant in town, but as usual, we didn't want to do anything that might draw attention. Instead, we went to a square on the edge of the shopping district where food carts congregated, and picked one that was producing good smells and not-unhappy customers. That got us a tasty mixture of spiced, grilled chicken breast, melted cheese, and vegetables wrapped in some kind of flatbread. I was pretty sure that the dish came from somewhere a lot further south, but I wasn't about to complain. In fact, I ate three of them. 

It was while I was washing my hands in the fountain at the center of the square afterwards that I spotted a figure in a familiar hood and cloak that looked like they were made of bleached canvas, dickering with a different vendor. 

" . . . just want enough to satisfy an idiot with a big appetite," said the slightly muffled voice from under the hood as I got near enough to hear. "He isn't picky." 

"Zelgadis," I said, and the hood jerked up, revealing blue eyes in a rocky frame. 

"Val! Is your, um, partner here?" 

"He's over by the fountain—why?" 

I couldn't make out the expression on the chimera's face behind the mask, but I could sense the flood of self-disgust, embarrassment, and subtler emotions as he replied, "Because I need help, and you're the only people I know in this town who might have enough money." 

Now that made me raise my eyebrows. "What do you need money for?" 

Anger, shame . . . "To get Pokota back." 

"Somebody actually _wanted_ him?" Not the most tactful thing to say, I knew, but surprise startled it out of me. 

"The queen," Zelgadis said, grinding his teeth. "That's Queen-Regnant Thalia Arienne Gyria, to be exact, not King Olovis' wife. She has a thing about rarities." 

I rolled my eyes. "Not another collector." 

"Don't tell me you run into a lot of them too." 

"Probably not as many as you do," I said, taking him by the shoulder and beginning to guide him over toward where Gaav was standing. 

The chimera sighed. "Well, this one specializes in rare creatures." 

"I'm surprised she didn't lock you up too, then." 

"She almost did. One of her courtiers managed to convince her that it would look bad to put someone who can still pass for human under the right circumstances on display in a cage. Pokota doesn't have that advantage." 

"And the money?" I asked as we came to a stop beside Gaav. 

"To bribe one of the courtiers to slip him out. She wants a lot, though—judging from what I overheard, she's got some impressive gambling debts. Otherwise, I'll have to either try to break Pokota out or send a message to Taforashia telling them that their king is living in an orihalcon-and-steel cage in someone else's menagerie, wearing an anti-magic restraint and eating dog kibble on the days when I can't slip him some real food." 

Gaav grunted and raised his eyebrows. I could guess some of what he was thinking: if a message like that reached Taforashia, at best it would open a whole bunch of cans of diplomatic worms. It might even start a war, and drag in Ralteague, Kalmaart . . . possibly even Seyruun, depending on what treaties currently bound those nations and who tried to march their troops across whose sovereign territory. Quickly, I rehashed what Zelgadis had already said, for my mate's benefit. 

"Exactly how much _does_ this courtier of yours want, chimera?" Gaav asked when I was done. 

"Eight thousand gold," Zelgadis said. 

I'd never seen my mate's eyebrows come so close to blending with his hairline. "Too much," he said, then interrupted the chimera with a gesture before he could speak up. "Not because I don't have the money—I've got a shit-ton of loot from old battles hidden away in various places—and not because I'm not willing to give it to you." 

"Then why?" 

"Because she can't possibly have believed you could come up with it, unless you mentioned the Taforashia thing. Which means I doubt she has any idea how to actually get him out of that cage." 

"You're saying she's trying to take me for a ride." 

"Pretty much." 

Zelgadis sighed gustily. "Well, that's just great. I suppose it's on to Plan B: The Midnight Jailbreak, then." 

Gaav and I exchanged glances above the chimera's head. 

"I wouldn't advise it," I said. 

"Why not?" Zelgadis was roiling with frustration. It made a pretty decent dessert. 

"Because one of my fucking ex-subordinates is mixed up in whatever's going on at the palace," my mate said. "As far as we can tell, anyway. The entire city is rotten with Mazoku." 

A bunch of kids were playing stupid games in the fountain, splashing water at each other. I could hear their shrieks of laughter with more clarity than I wanted to in the silence that followed. 

" . . . I think my life was a lot easier before I ran into you two again," the chimera muttered at last. "What do you suggest I do, then?" 

"Sit tight for a couple of days, and we'll see if we can't pry the fuzzball loose," my mate rumbled. "He seems like a useful guy to have owing us a favour." 

Another pause, then, " . . . alright. I suppose I won't lose anything but time, and I'm not likely to run out of that. But if he isn't back with me in three days . . ." 

" . . . we'll assume you're going to take matters into your own hands, one way or the other," I finished for him. "In the meanwhile, mind coming back to our inn with us? It's time that we pooled information, and it'll go quicker if we talk to you and Jillas at the same time instead of separately." 

Back at the Snoozing Serpent, we collected Jillas from his room and went to ours. We gave the old fox the only chair, which left Gaav and I side-by-side on the bed and Zelgadis leaning against the wall with his arms folded. 

"Do you mind if I ask a few questions first?" the chimera asked. 

Gaav shrugged. "I don't guarantee answers, but go ahead." 

"Which of your former minions is mixed up in whatever's going on at the palace? I assume he's powerful. If it were someone on Seigram's level, you wouldn't pay any attention." 

"Rashatt was my General. Think of him as half a Xellos, but without the fucking horrible sense of humour." 

The chimera's eyes widened slightly. "Half a . . . What's he doing _here_?" 

"How should I know? The ungrateful little fucker doesn't work for me anymore, and I've got no idea who snapped him up—he may have gone over to Hellmaster at first, according to some rumours Val heard, but that can't have lasted more than a couple of weeks." 

"How can I recognize him if I run into him?" 

"Step on his foot and see if he curses in Ancient Sairaagan when he takes a swing at you," I suggested with a smirk. "It's a bad habit of his. More practically, if he's still using the same appearance and not pretending to be a potted plant or one of the inmates of Queen Thalia's menagerie, he's about my height but much broader, looks like he might be mid-fortyish, and has dark, reddish hair with a strawberry blonde stripe down the middle. If he _is_ in the menagerie, you're looking for a wyvern-like creature about the size of a white dragon, with scales in various shades of dark red through black, and a yellow ridge along his spine." 

Zelgadis blinked several times, apparently processing this. "He can pass for human, then, if he wants to." 

"Pretty much," I said. "Personality-wise, he's got a nasty temper, too much pride for his own good, and not nearly as much intelligence as he thinks he does." 

The chimera muttered something that sounded like, "Dilgear," but then said more loudly, "I'll make sure to steer clear of him if I find him." 

"Oh, feel free to distract him if you want," I said. 

Zelgadis shook his head. "I'd prefer to survive long enough to find a cure, thanks. Even Lina doesn't casually go around baiting high-level Mazoku, and I can't cast the Giga Slave. Thank Ceiphied. I don't know if I could handle that level of responsibility." 

Gaav chuckled darkly. "It isn't that hard. Just make a point of using anything else you've got first, if you're that frightened of the collateral damage. It's clear that the Golden One doesn't want the world blown up yet, so that worst that could happen is that the spell misfires and you end up with a fucking big crater. The world's got more than a few of those scattered around." 

"Is that why you're leaving Lina alone?" 

"Pretty much. Without the threat of that spell breaking the world, she's at worst an irritant, and at best . . . the enemy of my enemy." 

"And thus . . . an ally?" 

"And thus a distraction for anyone after my ass. I don't expect more than that." 

Into the ensuing silence, I said, "Did they ask you about 'a sorcerer named Valgaav' at the city gate, or was that interesting tidbit reserved specifically for us?" 

The chimera wrinkled his stony brow. "I got there late and they were trying to pass people through as quickly as possible before closing up, but I think I might have heard one of the guards asking the driver of a carriage about it. It didn't really register at the time." 

_So I probably wasn't recognized—they're just asking everyone._ That was a relief, in its way, since it meant that Gaav probably hadn't been recognized either. We weren't playing into someone's hand. Not yet. 

"Your turn, fox," my mate said. "Find out anything interesting?" 

"'Bout that King Zilstan? Well, 's old news, but 'pparently he got badly hurt a while back. His horse bolted while he was hunting or something, and finished up by throwing him over a cliff. And then he laid there for three days, all smashed up, before they found him. They had to cut off his right arm—rotting off the bone, or so I heard—and his legs don't work quite right 'cause of the way his back got messed up. They say his face is pretty bad too. So he doesn't come out in public very much, and he wears a mask when he does. Don't know why he hasn't found a priest or something to fix it up." 

"That's even older history," I said. "About twenty years ago, King Olovis tried to expropriate a shrine to Rangort—he wanted to build a road or something. Since then, none of the priests of the Dragon Gods are willing to have anything to do with the Dilsan royals. Anyway, if he has neural damage to the spine, a human priest might not be able to fix it, especially after all this time. _If_ there's really anything wrong with him." 

Zelgadis shook his head. "I didn't get close to him, but he showed up on a balcony while I was trying to get Pokota away from Queen Thalia, and judging from the way his cloak was draped, he really doesn't have a right arm. I don't know about the rest, though." 

"You got a look at him?" I asked sharply. "What else did you notice?" 

A shrug. "He had long hair, sort of dark-orange-to-bright-red, like Lina's. Probably a big man, unless the people closest to him were midgets. I couldn't tell you whether he had a mask on or not—he couldn't have been wearing anything like mine, obviously, but I wasn't close enough that I would have spotted something carved and painted to resemble a normal face." 

I exchanged looks with Gaav. I'd thought that Zilstan and our mystery Mazoku being one and the same person was far-fetched, but I wasn't so sure now, and I didn't think my mate was, either. Anyone in a mask is automatically going to be suspicious, and add to that the fact that Zilstan matched Ryan's meagre description and supposedly had problems moving . . . It would still be a coincidence if Zilstan was both of our mystery Mazoku, but it would also be a coincidence if he _wasn't_. Or maybe a deliberate frame. 

"Tell me about Queen Thalia," my mate said, settling in to listen. I leaned back against him and did the same, knowing he'd pick apart whatever Zelgadis and Jillas had found out about the palace and royalty of Dils with meticulous care. And I would try my best to do the same, although I lacked his experience. 

You could never tell what bit of information would turn out to be vital, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The text of the novels never states what colour Rashatt's hair is, or what his Mazoku form is, so I took the liberty of assigning him some distinguishing features that didn't completely contradict the single black and white illustration we have of him.


	21. Chapter 21

The sun shone brightly the next day as I climbed the steps to the main entrance of Dils' royal palace. After the last several wet-but-peaceful days, the light felt like a warning. 

I climbed slowly so as not to outdistance Jillas. I'd brought him along because, as Gaav had pointed out, nobles always took you more seriously if you had a servant to announce you and serve you tea and wipe your ass for you. And having a witness beholden to me along might be useful too, depending on exactly why Zilstan—or Rashatt—was looking for me. 

The guards didn't bother to bar me from entering. That was as I'd expected: people went in and out of the public areas of the building all day on various business, I wasn't wearing my sorcerer's robes or my sword, and the imitation Ragud Mezegis slung across my back wasn't an _obvious_ weapon with the blades uninvoked. 

"'S a big place, Valgaav-sama," Jillas said as we passed through to the entrance hall. 

"Mmm." Big enough, but to my eye it also seemed kind of cramped. I mean, not that I was having to elbow people out of my way or anything, but I'd been to other palaces, and the traffic there had usually been lower. Besides, the building had probably been built to accommodate the original, single-monarch court, not three courts running in parallel. 

The chaos was orderly enough at its lower levels, though. Most of the people who passed us were either wearing livery, or wearing armbands in one of four colour schemes: pale green, burgundy, medium grey, or navy blue with pink trim. Like the guard uniforms at the city gate. The grey was probably intended to indicate monarchic neutrality, or something of the sort. They didn't need triplicate sets of people to mop the halls or keep the archives. I even sensed a couple of Mazoku among the bunch: a guard in burgundy, and a shortish figure of indeterminate gender and identity wearing a hooded grey cloak. There were too many overlapping auras for me to be able to pick out the details of them in particular, especially when the fringes of the astral fog that followed Gaav around lay over this corner of the city too, but I thought one of them might have originally been spawned by Deep-Sea Dolphin. 

I intended to find somewhere out of the way that I could stand while I sent Jillas off with a message, but before I could, large groups of people came spilling out of two of the doors leading deeper into the palace. One of them disgorged mostly burgundy uniforms, the other mostly green uniforms, and members of each side were beating on people from the other with . . . practice weapons? 

It should have been some kind of joke, except that it . . . wasn't. The yells and curses, the expressions of concentration, the bone-breaking force with which the wooden swords were being swung, and, above all, the desperation with which those not involved fought to get out of the way, all combined to indicate that this was deadly serious. 

Jillas ducked behind me with a yelp, and I searched through my store of human spells for something appropriate. Unfortunately, the best I could come up with was, "Sleeping!" 

The combatants all collapsed on the floor, as did several people who hadn't run away quickly enough. I winced as I heard the sound of shattering porcelain—one of them had been a maid carrying a tea set. Wide-area Sleeping spells aren't that easy to control. 

There was a moment of absolute silence. 

Then chaos erupted, with everyone talking at everyone and running around in little circles. All staying well away from the combatants, I noted, as though they thought they were contagious. 

As Gaav would have said, _What the fuck?!_

"What the _fuck_ is going on here?!" A voice echoed my thoughts. A familiar voice. 

Rashatt strode into the entry hall from beyond the double doors at the far end. He looked haggard, with raccoon circles ringing his steel-grey eyes . . . all of which had to be skillful manipulation of his physical projection, rather than representing actual exhaustion. He was wearing light armour—a metal half-breastplate with shoulder and thigh guards, like Gourry's in style if not materials—over a burgundy jacket and trousers, and had a curved blade with a nasty hooked prong sticking out of it slung across his back. All part of the disguise, I assumed, or he would have been wearing the red armour he'd made from Gaav's own shed scales instead, since it offered much better defense. 

"You tell me," I said, and his head whipped around, eyes widening slightly as he recognized me. "It looked like some kind of half-baked riot, so I figured I'd stop it before any of them remembered they had real swords with them. I understand that once you get blood into the cracks in a stone floor like this, it's murder to get out." The smile I gave him was edged and nasty. I'd known Rashatt a long time, but I couldn't honestly claim we'd ever been friends. 

"Valgaav. So you _are_ alive." 

"You sound surprised." 

"Reports were . . . conflicting. Look, we can't talk here. I have to—" 

"Oh, General Rashatt! Yoo-hoo!" 

_Yoo-hoo?_ I mouthed incredulously at the Mazoku, who looked like he'd been punched in the gut. 

I turned to look in the direction from which the voice had come. 

The woman approaching us was tall and slim, with auburn hair. She looked like she was thirty or so, but that might have owed as much to skilled use of cosmetics as her actual age. She was wearing a crown (gold set with deep green stones that matched her dress), and was trailed by a woman attendant and a page in pale green, so I suspected she'd have the best of help in applying her paints, if that was what she wanted. 

"Queen Thalia." Rashatt bowed in greeting. 

So this was the woman with the menagerie. Odd. She didn't look cruel. Maybe she was just one of those humans who had a hard time seeing anyone who didn't look like her as a person. 

"General Rashatt." She smiled and nodded to him. "Are my men being a problem again? Oh, I'm so sorry!" 

"Actually, I'm not quite sure what happened yet, Your Majesty. They were hit with a sleep spell before I could question them. Along with a few miscellaneous personnel—couldn't you have aimed better?" That last was directed at me. 

I shrugged. "Not with that spell, not unless I wanted to run around touching each person involved, and it really didn't look like there was going to be time." 

Queen Thalia raised an eyebrow, dropping the almost girlish manner she'd employed with Rashatt. "And you are?" 

"My apologies, Your Majesty," Rashatt said. "Valgaav is an old . . . acquaintance of mine. And a dear friend of King Zilstan's." 

I made a proper, courtly bow. Probably a bit old-fashioned, but I doubted anyone was going to criticize my form as long as I did it smoothly. Inside, I was seething with questions. _How can I be a "dear friend" of King Zilstan's? I've never even_ met _King Zilstan! Unless he really is the one who snuck into our bedroom that night, and I wouldn't exactly count that as an introduction!_ It didn't feel like a lie, though—Rashatt's anxiety hadn't spiked, and he'd never had anything like Xellos' skill at technically-true-but-misleading wordgames. 

"Interesting," Thalia said. "I didn't think Our unfortunate cousin had many friends left." 

I shrugged. "I've been travelling in the far south for quite some time, Your Majesty, so I haven't seen him since before . . . his accident. I understand there have been . . . problems. Perhaps I can cheer him up." 

"If you manage to do that, Valgaav-dono, you will have accomplished a feat equal to raising the dead. Truth be told, if you could persuade him to take some interest in ruling again, it would be a relief—both for Olovis and I, and for the country." 

"I'll see what I can do, Your Majesty." Although I had no idea how I was supposed to go about it. I wasn't exactly the most glib person in the world. If I needed to convince someone of something, it was easier to just feed them a Fireball. 

"So, Valgaav-dono, you're . . . a mage?" 

"Certified out of the New Sairaag Sorcerers' Guild office, yes." 

Rashatt snorted. "Guild? _You?_ " 

"Why not?" I said. "It isn't as though the admission test is _difficult_ , if you know what you're doing, and I wanted access to their library." 

"Maybe, but you're sh—I mean, you have a hard time dealing with authority. I'm surprised that they're not founding _New_ New Sairaag right now, on top of the crater you left behind." 

"I don't blow things up just because they annoy me. Unlike _some_ people I know." Baiting him was just too much fun. The expression on his face and the ripple in his emotions as he'd belatedly censored himself for Queen Thalia had almost made me laugh. Rashatt had gotten Gaav's foul mouth, but not my mate's total confidence in expressing himself. 

"I've never—" 

"Perhaps I'll jog your memory some other time, then." I smirked. Best keep it mysterious in front of the human witnesses. 

Queen Thalia actually smiled back. "And here I thought dear Rashatt didn't have any friends." 

" _We're not friends!_ " 

We both jerked and stared at each other. I was appalled that we'd said the line with a synchronicity not normally found outside comic plays; judging from Rashatt's emotional flavour, he felt much the same. 

Queen Thalia laughed, in a distinctive, affected way that seemed to be peculiar to some northern noblewomen. "Oh-hoh-hoh-ho! What are you, then?" 

I exchanged another glance with the Mazoku, then, when he didn't seem inclined to speak, fumbled out, "Students of the same master, at one time. Rivals, I suppose you could say." I was barely able to keep myself from adding, _And since when is he anyone's "dear Rashatt"?_

This might be the first time in history that a queen had had a crush on a Mazoku who wasn't intentionally trying to seduce her. I would probably find it funnier once I managed to disentangle myself from the conversation. Right now, I wanted to change the subject. 

"Do you want me to let all of them—" I waved my hand in the direction of the snoring pile of guards and practice swords. "—go at once, or one at a time?" 

"One at a time," Rashatt said immediately. "If we let them all go at once, they'll just start to fight again. Start with him," he added, nudging one particular burgundy-clad form with his toe. "Then we'll wake up one of Her Majesty's men and see whether their stories match up." 

I prodded the unfortunate soldier in exactly the same place. "Rise and shine," I said, adding a Chaos Word at the end. 

The man sat up so quickly that he must have come close to putting his back out, then scrambled to his feet, snapped to attention, and saluted. "General Rashatt, sir!" 

"Private Rylan." Rashatt nodded. Rylan seemed to take this as a response to his salute and lowered his hand, although his spine remained rigid. "Would you mind explaining to me just exactly what happened here?" 

Rylan looked around, then down at the practice sword at his feet. He swallowed visibly. "Sir. Um. Well." 

"You were on the practice field, I presume," I said, giving the blunt wooden sword a kick. "Try starting from there, if you can't figure it out." 

"Um," Rylan repeated, and looked at me. 

"Treat Valgaav's words as though they were coming from me." Rashatt looked rather disgusted as he said it, though. 

"Sir, yes, sir. We were at the practice yard, yes, sir. Moki from Squad Green Eight challenged Corporal Anders, and f—er, messed up somehow during the fight. Anders said he'd been crazy to try whatever-it-was—I didn't actually see the fight part, sir—and someone from Green Eight said that Anders probably knew a lot about crazy people, since he was from a Red squad. Then someone else said something rude about Queen Thalia, and it kind of . . . escalated. Sir. I think it was someone from Green Three who threw the first punch." 

"And how did you get from punches to wooden swords?" Rashatt asked, his buttery exasperation lending extra flavour to the guard's fear. 

"I suppose we all realized we were holding practice swords, sir, and figured there was nothing wrong with using them. After all, they aren't meant to kill. Sir." 

"Tell me, Rylan, do you think there's enough latrine duty in Gyria City to keep all of you busy enough for the next couple of weeks that you can't disturb the peace again?" Rashatt rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

"I wouldn't know, sir." 

"No, I don't suppose you would." 

At that moment, Thalia's page boy, whom I hadn't noticed leaving, came back with a female officer dressed in pale green. Rashatt greeted her and did a brief round of introductions. I didn't bother retaining her name—hell, I don't know why I held on to Private Rylan's. At Rashatt's request, I woke one of the rioters in green. His account agreed with Rylan's on most points, although he blamed "someone from Red Five" for the first punch. We repeated the exercise with Corporal Anders, who turned out to be a raccoon-man, but he only added a few details. 

They collected the wooden swords and brought in more troops to keep things from flaring up again before they had me wake everyone else up together in a bunch. 

When they'd all been led away, Rashatt rubbed the bridge of his nose again and said to Queen Thalia, who was still watching, "It's getting more and more difficult to keep the lid on. If Your Majesty has any suggestions about how to keep things under control, I'd like to hear them." 

"The people need something to celebrate," the queen replied promptly. "A royal wedding, perhaps. Oh-hoh-hoh-ho!" 

"Perhaps if King Zilstan emerges from his seclusion, that will become possible again." I suspect a taxidermied walrus would have been able to tell that Rashatt was missing the point on purpose, but no one would dare to say so—not even the queen. "If you'll excuse us now, Your Majesty, I really should take Valgaav to see him. We've wasted enough time on this . . . manufactured crisis." 

"Of course, General Rashatt. I hope I will see you at dinner tonight." 

"If circumstances permit, of course, Your Majesty." The Mazoku didn't do a very good job of forcing a smile, either. 

Rashatt just about ran toward one of the corridor entrances. I followed him at a slower pace, and Jillas, who had been watching quietly through all of this, followed me. 

Instead of disappearing into the astral the moment we were out of sight, as I'd half-expected him to do, the Mazoku followed a twisty path through what I thought were the service corridors, leading me up one narrow staircase, then another, until he opened a splintered old door into what appeared to be a storage room for old furniture. A couple of benches and a low table right beside the door had their dust covers wadded up in a mound behind them, and one bench even had an untidy stack of papers at one end. 

"Seems a little low on luxury compared to the kind of secret base you _used_ to set up," I said, seating myself on the bench that didn't have the papers. 

Rashatt scowled. "It's the fucking official position. I have to be careful about when and how I disappear, so I come up here when I want to vanish without really _vanishing_ , if you get what I mean. And no, Zilstan isn't here. I want to talk to you first. How the fuck did you get here so quickly? If one of the squads Zilstan sent out behind my back had picked you up, they'd be here with you. I only caved in and put out a call for you a few days ago, and even then I didn't expect it to get much beyond the city. Didn't want it to, really. I could have happily gone another thousand years without ever seeing that ugly face of yours again." 

So it hadn't been his idea after all. Interesting. 

"Coincidence," I said, shrugging. "I was already on my way here. I had no idea that you were in the area until I entered the city. Much less that you were on the verge of setting yourself up as Prince Consort." 

This time, I let my smirk widen as he ground his teeth. "That . . . woman! I do absolutely nothing to encourage her, but she sticks to me like a brass demon looking for patronage! I'm almost starting to understand why Gaav-sama took up with _you_ : at least he could trust you not to ask for more than he was willing to give! I don't know what the fuck to do about her." 

"Take the biggest, beefiest man you can find into your bed," Jillas said. "If you can find a beastman with a thing for humans, even better. You need t'convince her that there's no way in hell you could ever find her attractive, and just _saying_ so won't be good enough for that sort." 

Rashatt blinked at the fox. I think he honestly hadn't noticed him until then. 

"Jillas is my servant," I said, taking pity on the fox, if not on Rashatt. "He's been with me since . . . not long after . . . In any case, he knows pretty much everything important and he knows how to keep his mouth shut." 

Jillas nodded almost frantically, as though suddenly realizing what kind of danger he might be in. 

"Hmph. Looks a bit on the rickety side, but if he's useful, I guess it doesn't matter. I might even take his advice. Ruby-Eye knows I've tried everything else. So, now that you know what I've been doing, where have _you_ been? You dropped out of sight not all that long after Gaav-sama tangled with Hellmaster-sama." 

I shrugged. "I took a gamble and lost. Losing involved me fighting Xellos twice, then Lina Inverse, then Xellos _and_ Lina Inverse _and_ a golden dragon priestess _and_ a being from the Overworld all at once. After that, I needed to recuperate, so I got rid of my horn and concealed myself among the human population." Which was almost the truth. "My one regret is that I didn't kill the slimy cone for what he did to Gaav-sama. I had a chance, and I threw it away in pursuit of a plan that didn't work out." 

Rashatt blinked. "Fuck, Val, I know you're stronger than I am—especially now that it looks like you've got that dragonfire of yours under control—but Xellos is out of even your league. It was different when he was trying to get himself hauled into Gaav-sama's stronghold so that he could spy on us." 

"I had him at my mercy—I have _witnesses_ , Rashatt. Some of them are even reliable. Not that it matters." I raised my head and looked at him directly. "What I want to know is why the hell King Zilstan has you looking for me. To my knowledge, I've never met him." 

Rashatt, to my surprise, met my gaze steadily. "Oh, you know him, all right, you just don't _know_ you know. You see, King Zilstan . . . is what's left of Gaav-sama."


	22. Chapter 22

" _What?!_ " I nearly fell off the bench as my mind raced around in circles. 

That Zilstan and Gaav _couldn't_ be the same person, I knew without a doubt, but then why . . . ? And why did Rashatt _believe_ him? 

"Shocked the hell out of me too, but it's the only thing that makes sense," Rashatt said. 

I decided to tell part of the truth. "Rashatt, Zilstan _can't_ be Gaav-sama. Gaav-sama was, and _is_ , my mate. The only one I'll ever have. I _felt_ him vanish from the world." 

The Mazoku shrugged. "There's a lot of him missing. Maybe he's changed enough that whatever the fuck it was that held you together doesn't work anymore. I don't know." 

"Maybe you'd better start at the beginning." I steadied myself on the bench, hands gripping the edge. 

"There isn't a lot to tell. After you and I split and went our own ways, Huraker and Riksfalto showed up and tried to pound my ass. I managed to get away, but I was in pretty crappy shape, so I found myself a nice, deep twist in the astral and hid myself there until I healed up. I found out later I was there for several years. By then, even though I was more or less in one piece again, I felt like shit because I hadn't _belonged_ to anybody in so long. Fuck, I was even ready to have _you_ become my patron, but it was like you'd disappeared. I stumbled up into the Kataarts with the idea of binding myself to the King in the North directly, wandered into a canyon . . . and got slammed from behind on the astral by a power at least equal to mine. Knocked me out, and I didn't expect to wake up ever again." 

Rashatt shook his head. "I don't know if you can imagine how surprised I was when I _did_ wake up and heard someone say, 'Rashatt, what the fuck are you doing here?' And the voice was wrong, but the tone was right. On the astral, there was this tight little knot beside me that felt like Gaav-sama, and when I pulled myself together enough to work my projection again, I saw someone wrapped up in a mess of furs sitting beside me. A live human, with a heartbeat and all that shit, just like Gaav-sama was after Ragradia . . . did _that_ to him. Then when he moved some of the fur fell away a bit, and I could see that he only had half a face. The other half was scars and bone, except for that one eye. One gold eye, although the one on his good side is blue." 

"And he can't fix it." I was pretty sure of that, although I couldn't have said why. 

"No, he's tried every shapeshifting spell he's been able to find in addition to his own raw power, and he always comes out . . . wrong. With one bad leg, one missing arm, and half a face. I'm pretty sure it hurts him like a son of a bitch, too—the bits that aren't there, I mean. Half the time he doesn't make sense when he talks. Yelling at people who aren't there. Sometimes in languages I don't recognize. Assuming it isn't babble. The rest of the time, he's . . . like I remember him. I accepted him as my master almost immediately. None of the other Dark Lords want me, and it's better than being torn to shreds." 

"And do you have any reason to believe he isn't just a good astral mimic who studied Gaav-sama?" 

Rashatt rolled his eyes. "Val, I know I'm not the sharpest sword on the rack, but I'm not _that_ dumb. He knows things that only Gaav-sama should know. Not nearly everything, but enough to convince me that the problem's just that his memory's as tattered as the rest of him." 

"I suppose I'll have to see for myself." Otherwise, I couldn't think of a damned thing that would convince me. "Is he encouraging outbreaks of factional shit like the one I put down in the entrance hall, or is that just a natural function of what the government here is like now?" 

"He doesn't have much contact with anyone outside of me and a few servants I picked for him because they're easy meals. The stupid fights are just that: stupid. It's mostly Thalia who's pushing people into them, but I'm not sure why. It doesn't gain her or anyone anything that I can see." Rashatt grimaced, and added, "If I'd known what kind of mess Dils was in, I wouldn't have come back here. This nostalgia shit sucks." 

"I'm surprised you were able to just slip back into place," I said. "I mean, this was your last assignment from Gaav-sama, wasn't it? Recruiting in Dils, for the war in the north?" The war that had never happened, because Gaav-sama hadn't been there to spearhead it. 

"I'm my own great-grandson, or at least that's what everyone thinks," the Mazoku admitted. "And now you're just making conversation." 

I shrugged. "You were the one who wanted to talk." 

"I just wanted to warn you. If you freaked out in front of him . . . Zilstan might follow suit. He's . . . odd." 

"You don't call him 'Gaav-sama'." 

Rashatt squirmed. "He isn't . . . I can't . . . He's more like Gaav-sama's ghost. Maybe you can find a way to turn him back into what he was. I'm all out of ideas." 

I fed off his feelings of helplessness even as I reflected on how thin they were. It was as though Mazoku emotion lacked a dimension that mortal emotion possessed, a depth and a richness. That was why feeding off lesser demons was always seen as a last resort among Mazoku. It just wasn't satisfying. 

"Show me," I said. 

Ghosts. Even though it was big and drafty, the castle didn't seem like a place for ghosts, probably because it was bursting at the seams with courtiers and servants. Maybe the ghost was the man waiting for me back at the inn . . . but if nothing else, the red-white-black-gold power running through my veins gave the lie to that. Or maybe I'd lost my mind entirely, either when the mate-bond had snapped or when I'd given myself over to Darkstar, and the last several decades had been a hallucination. I smiled thinly. If that was the case, nothing I did would matter anyway, so I would continue to believe that the world around me was real. 

That aside, I was hoping that Zilstan would turn out to be a complete fake. That would be simple to resolve: we could just walk away, claiming he was none of our business, and let the other three surviving Dark Lords come down on Dils like ten tons of pissed-off dimos dragon when he finally managed to draw their attention. But if he really was Gaav's spawn . . . did we have some kind of obligation to him? To screw his head back on straight, or at least give him a peaceful death? 

Rashatt led me back down the stairs and along a main corridor, then back up to the second floor again, along a much broader, shallower, carpeted flight of steps. This area was so thickly warded that the King in the North could have been hiding out in one of the suites and I wouldn't have been able to tell without breaking the wards first. Instead, I had to grit my teeth and trust that Rashatt wasn't about to lead me into an ambush. 

"This actually used to be for visiting dignitaries, or so they tell me, but they needed _somewhere_ to put the third monarch, and this was the best place, since the old king's and queen's chambers were already in use," he said as he stopped beside a door. 

"Nervous?" I asked. "You're babbling." 

"Shut up." Rashatt growled the words, his emotions fluctuating wildly. I smirked. There was a time when he'd done everything possible to make my life a misery, and I had no compunctions at all about returning every single moment of that to him threefold. 

I tamped the smirk flat as he opened the door, though. It wouldn't have been appropriate. 

"Your Majesty?" Rashatt said cautiously, without stepping inside. 

"It's fine, General Rashatt," said a stranger's voice. "He's in the study." 

"Right. Well, then, get whoever else is here and clear out until you're called. We're not to be disturbed unless the palace is burning down, do you hear me? If Elmekia decides to declare war on Dils, it can wait." 

"Yes, General." 

"Fucking stupid games," Rashatt muttered as we listened to people moving around inside. A few moments later, three servants filed out: a young man with a harelip, a sour old woman, and another young man who kept his gaze fixedly on the floor. Shame, resentment, bitterness, self-hate, greed. Quite a bit of negative emotion, when you took into account that it was being generated by only three people. For a pure Mazoku, they would have been the perfect servants (or at least a decent meal buffet), but I had to wonder—if Zilstan was a chimera, did he have human needs, and were they being met? Would he even know if they weren't? 

"This way," Rashatt said, finally gesturing me inside. 

The room beyond had probably been intended as a sitting room. Now it was a semi-private audience chamber, with a huge high-backed chair against one wall in lieu of a proper throne. Rashatt led me through a door in a side wall into a small, carpeted hallway lined with even more doors. He stopped in front of one of them and knocked. 

"My lord, it's Rashatt." 

" _Go away._ " It was more of a rasp than a voice, and it sent a shiver skittering up my spine. 

"My lord, I've found Valgaav. He's here." 

The door tore itself from Rashatt's hand, and the big Mazoku jerked his arm back with a curse. The doorhandle slammed against the stone wall hard enough to strike sparks from it, and I aimed a small Aqua Create at the carpet where they fell. Just in case. 

"I feel . . . It almost . . ." Soft words, almost inaudible. Then, "Little dragon, is that you?" 

Another chill ran the length of my spine. That nickname had always been reserved for one person only—because if anyone else had ever tried to use it, I would have fed him his balls. 

I pushed past Rashatt and stepped through the open door, and we both froze—me, and the figure standing in the middle of the room. 

Rashatt had left out a lot, either on purpose or because he was a Mazoku and sometimes didn't understand why the physical was important. Zilstan did have one ocean-blue human eye, but the other was slit-pupilled, the eye of a dragon or a Mazoku. And he wasn't much taller than I was, although broader through the shoulders. His hair, thick on one side and patchy on the other, was orange-red, not blood red, as Zelgadis had mentioned. And his face, or the good side of it, wasn't Gaav's. Oh, there was some resemblance in the wide mouth and the sharp line of the nose, but the chin was wrong, and the one eyebrow wasn't nearly bushy enough. But the power that brushed against mine . . . oh, yes, I could understand why Rashatt had made the mistake he did. It was like. Very like. More so than that of any of Gaav's other spawn. 

"You're _alive_ ," Zilstan rasped. He tried to take a step toward me, and stumbled, letting out a sound of pure rage and frustration as he went down on one knee. I could tell because I could taste it, as easily as I could if he were Rashatt. 

When I grabbed him by the shoulders, it was as much to see if his arm was really missing as to lift him to his feet . . . except that he turned out to be too heavy to lift easily, his body as solid as any dragon's. And there really was no arm hidden inside his clothes. I could feel the bone around the edge of the shoulder socket just underneath a thin covering of skin. 

He threw his arm around my waist and pressed his face against me, and I had to control my instinctive desire to flinch back—it's difficult to do otherwise when a total stranger is stuffing his nose into your crotch. 

"It really is you," he mumbled up against me. "But . . . I can't taste . . ." 

"That's because you're weaker than I am," I said, and felt him jerk. _Did he really not know?_ "In fact," I added as he looked up, "I'd judge that you're barely stronger than Rashatt. Just who do you think you are?" 

"You . . . little dragon . . ." 

"There is only one being in this world who has _ever_ been entitled to call me that, and while you may have some of his memories, you are _not_ him." 

I knew I was hurting him, but it was because, deep down inside, I was _terrified_. There was a nightmare forming inside my head, an image of what might have happened if I and not Rashatt had been the one to find this strange being. If I'd still been all alone, I might have accepted him as the Mazoku General had. I might have thought he was the last surviving part of my mate, and left the _real_ Gaav to die. 

_Turn your fear into anger and point it outward._ It might have been the first thing he'd ever taught me. _Fear is a weapon, just like any other. You want to hurt your enemy with it, not yourself._

Most of the time, that was good advice, but in weird situations like this it might not be the best choice. 

Zilstan's growl sounded more rusty than chesty. "Just who do _you_ think _you_ are?" he asked, letting me go and surging to his feet in a motion that was almost as smooth as Gaav's would have been. 

"I am Valgaav. Last of the ancient dragons, own mate to Chaos Dragon Gaav, the Dark Lord who broke free of Ruby-Eyed Shabranigdo to forge his own path. I am the one who called Darkstar into this world and almost sent everything here back to the Sea of Chaos." Behind me, Rashatt made a choking noise. Oh, right, I hadn't explained to him exactly what that "failed plan" I'd mentioned had entailed. "My power is greater than yours, and therefore, by what passes for protocol among Mazoku, I outrank you. It would be unwise not to answer my questions." 

"Wisdom isn't something I'm noted for. Just ask the other fucking clowns in crowns that I'm surrounded by." A sword appeared in Zilstan's good hand. The blade was a churning mass of glowing orange-red, as though it was made of true fire. "You think you're superior to me? All right, then, you can fucking _prove_ it." 

I smirked and took the false Ragud Mezegis from my back. "Gladly. _Light, come forth!_ " I spun the lance in my hands, pointing the larger blade directly at him. 

" _Hey!_ Just wait a fucking minute, you two!" Rashatt threw himself between us. "Valgaav, I didn't bring you here to attack my master!" 

"What did you expect me to do, then?" I asked. "Romance him? This . . . _thing_ who retreats into hallucinations rather than face reality? And we won't even mention the bit where he snuck into my room in the middle of the night to ogle me. He's an insult to Gaav-sama's memory." 

"That _was_ you!" Zilstan said. "I thought it was a dream . . . but then . . . you . . . You _betrayed_ me! Even you . . ." The rusty growl filled the room as a reddish aura began to pulse around him. 

I growled back. "I told you, you aren't him and I am _not yours_!" Rather than let my aura flare up, I shifted my grip on the false Ragud Mezegis slightly and began to incant something I wasn't sure would actually work . . . but if it did, and the weapon could handle it, it would hurt him like a son of a bitch without blowing up this end of the palace. " _Lord of the dreams that terrify, sword of the cold, dark void, free yourself from the heavens' bonds—_ " 

Zilstan shrieked, a terrible sound. " _No!_ " It startled me enough that I lost control of the spell and let it dissipate. "No! If you do, he'll . . . green eyes . . . fucking green eyes . . . bitch sorceress . . . " His own eyes were unfocussed, staring at nothing. 

"My lord, are you . . . oh, _fuck_ ," Rashatt said. "Now it's going to be _hours_ before he's back in the real world again. And as for you, you asshole dragon, get the fuck out of here. You've done enough damage." 

"With pleasure," I said, and turned my back to them both even though it made the space between my shoulderblades itch. I didn't deactivate the Ragud Mezegis until I was back out in the hallway, though. 

"What now, Valgaav-sama?" Jillas asked. 

I sighed heavily. "Now we go back to the inn. I have to talk to . . . him." And I was fighting against the stomach-churning feeling that what I'd just done had been a terrible mistake.


	23. Chapter 23

"It doesn't really matter if you fucked up or not," Gaav said as we sat side-by-side on the foot of the bed, with me leaning against his shoulder. "They aren't a danger to us. We can take them out anytime. Or beat them into submission. That might be the way to go. Zilstan, if we can fix him, might make a decent replacement for Raltaak. We'd be back up to strength." 

"Do you really think he's fixable?" 

"Probably. You still haven't figured it out, have you? What the shit he babbled after you started to cast the Ragna Blade meant." 

I shook my head. 

"Mmh. The spell itself's been around since the Shinma War—created by an ancient dragon, ironically enough—but the only person to cast it in the last few thousand years is Lina Inverse . . . and you, apparently. I didn't know you knew the thing." 

I shrugged. "I saw her cast it and memorized the Chaos Words. I know enough about the Lord of Nightmares, from you, to make the spell structure form up in my head, but today was the first time I've ever tried to use it. I was actually kind of surprised that it looked like it was going to work. So Lina Inverse was his 'bitch sorceress' . . . and 'green eyes'?" 

"When he backstabbed me in the Kataarts, Phibby had his physical projection tuned to look like a kid with light green eyes. Zilstan, or whatever you want to call him, isn't really my spawn—he's the chunk of power I lost in that attack, probably combined with some stray soul that's been wandering around the area since the Kouma War, unwilling to move on. He can't fix his missing pieces because he was never properly formed in the first place, and the soul he's tied to may retain scraps of the previous personality. Small wonder he's out of his fucking mind." 

"Why does he have one yellow eye, then?" 

"I'm not sure, but if I had to guess . . . it's because I was thinking of you when he was separated." 

"Wouldn't that make him our son, in a sense?" Weird, disquieting thought: my hatchling wanting to get into my pants. 

"Fucked if I know. I think this is another one of those fucking historic firsts that I hate so much." My mate scowled, then heaved a sigh. "My first instinct is to fix it, but I want to do it without revealing myself to anyone but them, and I'm not sure how to go about it. I think you're right, little dragon: this is all the Golden One's fault, from start to finish. And she thinks I've been slacking off while I was out of circulation, or we wouldn't have landed knee-deep in this crap so soon." 

"I'm starting to wish I really had come up with a way to hurt her," I grumbled. 

"I'm starting to almost believe that we could." 

"You're serious." 

"I'm serious. Little dragon, I don't think you realize just how strong you're becoming." 

"I . . ." 

"Val, look. _Look,_ " he repeated, using a particular elven word that meant examining something on the astral, and putting the lash of command behind it. I snarled silently at him, showing the pitiful imitation fangs that were the best I could fit in a human mouth, but I also . . . _looked_. 

The first thing I saw was our talons, resting side-by-side, lit from within with fiery, glowing energy. The slenderer dark-scaled hand that frothed with a torrent of colours within, white and black and red and gold, wasn't one whit less solid or less bright than the red one resting beside it. It wasn't much smaller, either. 

"If you're not my equal now, Valgaav, then you're pretty damned close to it." My mate's voice rumbled from his central head as he nuzzled me with the left one. "I suppose I should stop calling you _little_." 

"Don't," I said. "After all, I'm still younger than you. We can let it stand for that." 

We both laughed, and I could feel clearly, in the skin of my human shoulders, the sensation of him grooming my wings, separating the feather-scales gently and smoothing them out in the perfect orientation. 

This was the life we both longed for, I think—not a human life, but a dragon life. Wrapped up in each other, and very far away from anyone else. 

I sighed, and let my perceptions sink fully back into the physical. That life wasn't something we could have. Taking any form other than his current human one required my mate to continuously exert vast amounts of power against the pressure of Ragradia's curse, or he would snap back into this shape. I'd examined the curse itself once, where it tangled around him on one of the deepest layers of the astral like a cruel net of razor wire. Seen the scars, and the places where it still made him bleed, although he never spoke of the pain it had to be causing him. 

"It's funny," he said now, arm resting around my waist. "Although a lot of it pissed me off at the time, I can't bring myself to regret any of what brought me to this time and this place . . . except for the bits that hurt you. I never could have imagined, that night I found you in the desert, that you would make me this happy. Fuck, I don't think I could have imagined _being_ this happy." 

"And I never thought I would be happy again," I admitted. "Not then." 

The kiss that followed was slow and sweet, more gentle than he generally offered or than I generally wanted, but just then, it felt right. So did the hand that he slid up under my shirt to caress my chest and side. 

"I want to enjoy you slowly," he said, nibbling at my ear. "To keep myself from saying more sappy shit, if nothing else. Do you mind?" 

"That sounds great." And it did. 

His first target turned out to be my neck. On the physical, he licked and sucked at the skin, stopping now and again just to bury his face in my hair, leaving me with the shivery feeling of his breath warming my scalp. On the astral, his central head gripped me firmly by the nape while the others attacked my throat and jaw, nuzzling and licking and pressing his teeth against my scales. I whimpered and tried to contort myself to offer him better access on both planes at the same time, making him chuckle. 

I began to unlace the front of my shirt, but he caught my hands between his, and I subsided again, although I would have fought anyone else. He opened my shirt himself instead, and I shivered, feeling my nipples tighten as he exposed them. Normally they weren't all that sensitive, since they had no analogue on my real form, but today they seemed to have a mind of their own, sending little sparks through me as he bit down lightly on one. My tail twitched, swishing back and forth, flicking against his flank on the astral. 

He made a soft, throaty, satisfied sound as he used his tongue to trace the edges of the scar over my heart, the one left behind by his sword all those years ago. His permanent mark on me. 

"I belong to you," I whispered, and he jerked his head up in seeming surprise. 

"Then call for me," he said. 

" _Gaav! My mate, my partner, my everything._ " The rumbling growl of the words filled the room, spoken in the language of my childhood and my heart. 

He smiled, and responded in the same language. " _For all my power and all my riches, you are the one thing of value I have ever had._ " 

"I thought doing this would keep you from saying more sappy shit," I said, and he laughed and leaned back for a moment to pull off his shirt. 

"It's all your fault, you know, little dragon." 

I smirked. "So if I can make you do that against your will . . . what else can I make you do, I wonder? Chase me naked along the hallway? Recite poetry? Dress up in a—" 

I was interrupted by a firm kiss planted on my lips, and wrapped my arms around his neck as I opened my mouth for him. 

On the astral, tongues flicked lightly against my earholes, the corners of my eyes, and the inside of my mouth—all the most sensitive, scaleless places on my body. 

"You do seem to inspire me to do a lot of stupid crap," my mate admitted. "But I don't think I exactly inspire the best in you, either. I mean, _I_ wasn't the one trying to blow up the fucking world. Not this last time, anyway, and the Shinma War doesn't count." 

"Says who?" 

His hand slid between my legs and palmed the already hopelessly firm bulge in my trousers. I groaned and thrust against his palm, but the moment I began to move, he took his hand away again. 

"Says me," he said, with that familiar smirk. And dipped his head to leave a bite mark on my shoulder. Meanwhile, his hands gripped me at waist and hip, shifting my position so that he could push me down onto the bed and kneel between my legs. 

Slowly, he unlaced the front of my trousers, and the sudden release of pressure made me gasp and moan wantonly. It didn't take much help from him for my cock to put itself on display. It popped through the first available opening, offering itself to him, and his eyes were glittering and predatory as he fixed on it. For several moments, he just stared, before tearing himself away for a quick look around the room. 

"What are you doing?" I asked. 

"Considering geometry. I think this should work." 

He lay down beside me but upside-down relative to me, and propped himself up on his elbow before leaning in over my thigh. He gathered my cock in his hand and leaned in further, and I trembled because he so very rarely did this . . . but when he did, it felt _so_ good. 

His tongue slid warmly over the head of my erection, and I whimpered. _Oh, fuck . . ._ My wings tried to pop out, and I forced them back in because there wasn't any room with me lying on my back, and then I screamed as his mouth closed over my cock, taking the whole thing in and suckling gently and I thought I was going to go insane from pleasure. I dug my hands blindly into the bedding and heard something rip as talons bit down. There was a warm quiver in my stomach and I could feel pressure gathering in my balls despite the effort I was putting into willing it down again. 

" _Rgh!_ I-I'm going to—" 

Despite the awkward angle, I could see the glitter in his eyes as he worked his tongue along the underside of my cock. His hand found the scar on my chest again, fingers probing it roughly, and that—the reinforcement of what he was to me, the little spark of pain—drove away the last vestige of control. I spasmed, spurting down his throat, and he drank me dry, refusing to let a single drop escape. 

When he was done—and so was I—he raised his head, and, smirking, licked his lips slowly. As though my seed were the most delicious thing in the world. 

"It makes me feel very strange when you do that," I told him. 

"Good strange, I hope." He ran his hand lightly down my arm and stopped at my hand, his thumb tracing circles against the scales just below the knuckles. "I knew it was a mistake not to ward the fucking bedding." 

I flushed. "When you do things like that, I can't . . ." 

"Did I say it was a problem? I'll fix it later. Still, you do seem to lack a bit of self-control. Maybe I should have trained you better." 

"Or maybe I should show you what it's like, and break a little of _your_ self-control," I suggested, rubbing my hand firmly over a certain place on his still-dressed lower body. 

"Is that an offer to service me, little dragon?" 

"Service you? Like hell! You've had your chance to enjoy me, and now I want mine to enjoy you, that's all. Now, lie back so I can get at you properly." 

"Feisty, aren't we?" He caught me by the back of the neck as we rearranged our tangle of limbs and pulled me in for a kiss, letting me taste myself on his tongue. I'd lost my conscious awareness of the astral, but I would have bet he was gripping me more or less the same way there, forcing my submission. 

Even with him sprawled on his back among blankets and pillows, the impression he gave off was that of a king awaiting a favourite concubine. Even if our power was almost equal now, his absolute self-confidence made me feel he was dominant over me. If he'd been anyone but who he was, I probably would have murdered him years ago for being an arrogant asshole. 

Those thoughts fled from my mind as I unlaced his trousers, though. Unlike my cock, his had to be carefully escorted out, through openings that could barely accommodate it, but at last I had it bare in front of me. And it looked delicious. I was salivating so badly that I almost dribbled on him when I bent down for my first taste in what seemed like years. Or maybe it had been years. I didn't think we'd done this in particular since he'd returned to me. 

I licked the tip of his cock, and closed my eyes, savouring the familiar salty flavour. Then I guided the head into my mouth and slid my lips down the shaft as far as they would go, hollowing my cheeks as I sucked. I couldn't take all of him in—even a professional sword swallower would have had a hard time, I think—but I did my best. One hand curled around his shaft, moving up and down, while the other reached further back and found his balls, big and heavy and thinly furred with red hair, and began to stroke. I could feel every quiver in his body, hear every change in the tempo of his breathing, and when he growled low in his throat and fisted one hand in my hair, I smiled invisibly around his cock, because that meant I'd won our little game and made him lose control after all. Only on the physical, though. I couldn't keep up a simultaneous barrage on the astral the way he could—sustaining my conscious perception of that world took too much effort. 

Still, winning on the physical was enough for me. It was more than I usually managed. 

I sucked harder, tongue swirling around the head of his cock, trying for my best imitation of the vortex that was said to be the only physical opening to Deep-Sea Dolphin's undersea realm while I fought against my mate's periodic jerks on my hair. He really had lost control if he was trying to draw me so far down onto him that I would have choked. Greatly daring, I slid my fingers even further back, feeling along the crack in his ass until I found the pucker there. Pushing inside it would have been suicidal, but he made a strangled noise as I ran my fingertip around the edges, and his balls drew up with a jerk, flooding my mouth. I was a bit slow in swallowing, and a little of his seed oozed out the corner of my mouth, but as soon as he'd stopped spurting out more and I released his softening cock, I locked my eyes with his and extended my tongue to lick up the bit that had escaped, grinning wickedly. 

He chuckled. "If you want another round, you're going to have to wait a bit. And we might end up missing supper." 

"Mmm . . . I don't think so. Not today." I curled up against Gaav's side, pillowing the my head on his chest. "So, have you had enough thinking time?" 

"Hmm?" 

Now it was my turn to chuckle. "I know you, remember? You do most of your thinking by letting your subconscious tackle your problems while your conscious mind is doing something else. Usually fighting or fucking." 

"If I ever get rid of you, little dragon, it'll be because you know me too well." 

"Does that mean you've figured out what to do next?" 

"It means that the whole situation here is making me fucking uneasy. Things keep popping up, as though they're being pushed into our path by an invisible hand. It's a little too crude to be Xellos' work, though." He began to stroke my hair absently with one big hand. "Although he could be working for someone he hates. He gets sloppy when he doesn't believe in the agenda he's pushing. But it could just as easily be Dynast's current priest—he's kept Dee's replacement under such tight wraps that I don't even know whether it's a he or a she, much less what modes of operation it prefers. Or some fragment of Dear Old Dad might be trying to get rid of the traitors by convincing us to eliminate each other. Or someone could have thrown a new spawn. Or it could even be a human or some servant of the Dragon Gods who've decided they want the Mazoku out of Gyria City." 

I twirled a bit of his hair that had come loose from its restraining band around my finger. "I suppose it doesn't matter all that much, in the end." 

"It makes it difficult to make contingency plans if we don't know what to expect," Gaav grumbled. "But I don't suppose we have a fucking choice. Waiting until they slip up could take years, and I don't want to spend that long on this. Anyway, there are at least four different sides in this mess: Zilstan and Rashatt's, ours, the ordinary humans', and whoever's messing with us. Our first move is still to reduce that number by one, by bringing Zilstan and Rashatt to heel. Then we use them and the dregs they have following them around to help us take on Xellos or whoever. We need to get Rashatt out of the fucking castle first without Zilstan figuring us out, I think. And that's as far as I've gotten." 

"We should be able to use his position in the human hierarchy somehow," I said thoughtfully. "Cause some kind of disturbance in the city—some kind of _natural-looking_ disturbance that won't actually hurt anyone, ideally—and force him out to patrol or take reports or something. Hell, a threatening letter might be enough, if we put the right stuff in it. I can get Jillas to write it, if you think Rashatt would recognize our handwriting." 

"Not bad," Gaav said slowly. "Yeah, we can try that. At worst, we'll be out a piece of paper and have to try something else." 

We went to look for Jillas, and found him in the entryway, speaking to the innkeeper. 

"—s'pposed to look after the kid. Probably didn't mention that, either." 

"I'm sorry, Jilles-san, but I honestly don't know where he went, only that he said your party would pay his bill." 

"What's going on?" I asked crisply as I reached the bottom of the stairs. 

"Young Kellelan's gone," Jillas said. "Stiffed us with his bill, too, but there're other things as I'm more worried about." 

"Damn," I muttered. "How much did he owe?" 

"Three silver, four bronze, two copper," the innkeeper said. 

I fished four silver out of my pocket and handed it over. "Keep the change," I said. "You really have no idea at all where he went?" 

"None at all, sir. Sorry." 

"Did you see him . . . associating with anyone at all except us?" 

The innkeeper held out his hand. I sighed inwardly and deposited another silver. 

"There was a young woman, I think. This morning. She came and spoke to him just outside, on the doorstep. I didn't hear what they were talking about, but he packed up and left not long after that." 

"What did she look like?" 

There went the hand again. I was starting to think the bastard was a vending machine. 

"I didn't get a good look at her face, 'cause she was wearing a veil, but she was definitely a human and not a beastman or something. Short, with bluey-green hair and the biggest grey eyes you ever saw. Might have been anywhere from sixteen to thirty, I guess, but not older than that, and not likely much younger, with the chest she had. She moved like a dancer, kind of graceful-like." 

"Thanks for your time." 

I exchanged looks with Gaav, who was scowling. Mazoku's physical projections could be altered as their owner pleased, but this description matched too closely for it to be coincidence. 

_Huraker._ I'd only met her a couple of times, but Deep-Sea Dolphin's Priest wasn't easy to mistake. This was an unlikely place to find her, but that didn't mean much. She might be working with someone else. Or someone who knew a lot about the upper-level Mazoku could be trying to frame her. Either way, this wasn't good. The only conclusion I could come to was that she knew I was here, and that she'd gone after Kellelan as a way of getting to me. 

That she might not know Gaav was here, since he'd been shrouded in astral fog and disguising his castings as mine ever since we'd gotten here, was . . . not as helpful as I might have liked. We'd only be able to stage my mate's grand return once, and I wasn't sure he'd want to waste it on this. 

But one thing I did know for certain. 

"We have to get him back," I said. 

"We'll do what we can, little dragon, but right now I'm not optimistic. You know this is a trap." 

"Of course I know." _But it's also all my fault._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with Rashatt, the only reference I have for Huraker is in black and white, so I assigned her hair and eye colours according to what seemed appropriate. And the outfit the innkeeper saw her in was chosen for the job, rather than being her usual Mazoku garb, and designed to emphasise her chest (the reference image has her looking pretty flat).


	24. Chapter 24

Unfortunately, Huraker, if it was she, could have taken Kel anywhere in the world, or isolated him in a pocket in the astral. That meant that searching for him was effectively impossible. I was angry at myself for not having put a tracker on him, but I'd _trusted_ him. Fine lot of good it had done me. 

I did what I could, sending Jillas to the constables with a missing persons report, then having handbills printed and posted with a ten-gold reward for news—large enough to make people really want to collect it but not so large they would think we were into something shady, I hoped. Provided Kel didn't change his appearance, that would hopefully result in some news of him if he appeared on the physical in the city. It would also result in a lot of false alarms, I was sure, but Jillas could deal with those. 

It was . . . a bit disturbing, really, to realize how invaluable the fox was to our current operations. In the old days, individual minions had been of little value, but when you had only one, he became precious. Even when you didn't consider the emotional dimension. 

I was attached to Jillas, and it worried me that I was attached. With each additional person I wanted to protect, the difficulty of that protection rose exponentially. It had been so much easier in the days when all I cared about was my mate and my revenge . . . 

"Val?" 

"Hm?" I shook my head. "Sorry, what?" 

Gaav chuckled. "Asleep on your feet, were you? Don't let it become a habit. Anyway, it's almost time. We should find out whether or not our fish took the bait within the next ten minutes or so." 

I glanced at the scrying spell that gave us a view of the physical world from the pocket dimension he had created for us, and discovered that it really was almost sunset. And there were burgundy-clad people with weapons entering the narrow rear yard of the royal granary, which was the location we'd mentioned in our note. It had been chosen carefully: the granary itself was a sensitive target, representing the city's hedge against famine, but it wasn't _so_ sensitive that there was more than a nominal guard on it under normal circumstances. In other words, it would have been a good target for a preliminary military sneak attack. Something the government couldn't afford to ignore. And given Rashatt's character and the way we'd written the note, there was a good chance he would turn up. 

I felt my lips pull back in a predatory grin as I saw a large man with a blonde stripe down the middle of his hair come around the corner of the building. "It looks like we've got him firmly hooked." 

"Well, I didn't design him to be bright. Raltaak was supposed to handle that part. Let's wait a moment or two. I want to see if he's learned anything. Not that he ever did before, but he was never really on his own before, either." 

We watched as Rashatt made the rounds of the courtyard, speaking to each of the guards as he assigned them a position. We hadn't bothered including sound in the scrying, but he seemed to be encouraging them, and possibly reiterating their orders. Normal military stuff. Gaav snorted, but he didn't say anything. 

When the Mazoku crossed the area of the physical most closely linked to our pocket dimension, my mate reached out and pulled him in. Rashatt blinked at the sudden transition from outside to inside—we'd created a comfortable little waiting area for ourselves, although I'd chosen to stand beside Gaav's chair rather than taking the unused one across from him. That was clearly reserved. Although I had sat in my mate's lap for a while . . . 

"Remember me?" my mate asked with a smirk. 

"G-gaav-sama . . ." Rather than taking the chair, Rashatt dropped to his knees and bowed his head, although I could also feel him testing the astral around us. A three-headed dragon growled softly, and the wyvern-like creature in front of it dropped to its belly on the ground, exposing the vulnerable back of the neck. The second growl was more of a grumble of satisfaction as the taste of fear overwhelmed the blandness of confusion. "I-I had no idea . . . you were supposed to be . . ." 

"Dead. I know. I got better. The question is, what the fuck do you think you're doing right now? Getting involved in human politics without any orders? It's amazing you haven't dumped the entire country into chaos." 

Rashatt shivered, and I tasted pure terror. "Forgive me, Gaav-sama! I didn't know what else to do!" 

"I could forgive that," my mate rumbled. "What really pisses me off is that the first thing you did after my death was take up with that little shit Hellmaster. With my murderer. _I would be happier if you'd offered yourself up to fucking Ceiphied!_ " 

I hadn't thought Rashatt could grovel any harder, but he was doing it. "I'm sorry, Gaav-sama! Forgive me! He offered to help me take revenge against Lina Inverse—" 

My mate snorted. "Why the fuck would you bother with her? Hell, I probably owe her some kind of reward for dealing with Phibby! Not much of one, since she let him use her, but something. I'll have to go through the shit I've got lying around and see if I've got any spellbooks or something that she might be interested in." 

"Because Hellmaster-sama . . . was beyond my reach," Rashatt said to the somewhat indefinite floor. 

Gaav sighed in exasperation. "Not surprising, I suppose—I didn't create you to have any ambition, and there's no such thing as a genuinely loyal Mazoku, but fuck, it's annoying sometimes. The only thing rarer in this fucking world than good minions is worthwhile allies. Why didn't you go back to Val, though? He could have used your help." 

We both felt the flicker of rage from Rashatt. "He didn't tell you? Dolphin's Priest and General came after me, and I was sidelined for a few years. By which time that . . . dragon . . . had disappeared." 

"And you hate him," my mate said. 

Rashatt made no reply. 

"So who do you belong to now?" Gaav's tone as he asked the question was casual, almost lazy, but his eyes were intense. I could tell that all of his senses were focused on Rashatt. 

"I . . ." A surge of anguish shot through Rashatt. It was an interesting, complex flavour. "I . . . You. Gaav-sama." 

"Oh?" 

"The one I have been serving during your . . . absence . . . would not be able to fight you for me." 

"So who says I want you?" 

Fear again, so thick that its sweetness was turning cloying. "I can't stop you from dismissing me, if that's all you think I'm worth. If you do, I will return to him." 

"What do you want to do?" Gaav asked, in a level, emotionless voice. 

"Gaav-sama?" 

My mate sighed. "Let's try that again. Pretend for a moment that I would just let you go if you said you wanted to serve someone else. What would you do?" 

"I . . . don't know." Rashatt blinked several times. He seemed to find the question almost incomprehensible, and I unexpectedly found myself taking pity on him. 

"He wants you to tell him what you _want_ to do, as opposed to what you _have_ to do," I said. "Something Mazoku often seem to find difficult." 

Rashatt's glare at me held a spark of pure hatred, and I think he hated me more knowing that I was feeding off him. Then he scowled and forced himself to look down. "I . . . would still stay with Gaav-sama." 

"Even knowing that I would expect you to obey Valgaav's orders as though they were my own?" 

Another shudder of hate, and then cold emptiness. Maybe Rashatt was tired. "Even if it means obeying him. But if I may ask, Lord, why? Why have you given this dragon such a high position?" 

"Because he can give me things that no Mazoku ever can, and I don't mean his body. Val is immensely powerful, but because of the mortal elements in his makeup, he's also capable of change and growth. And he understands how some of the things that Mazoku regard as weaknesses can also be strengths, given the right conditions. I consider him nothing less than a treasure stolen out from under the nose of the Golden Lord. A special prize. You, on the other hand, are nothing more than I wanted you to be when I made you. That doesn't mean you're useless—there's a place in the world for well-made ordinary swords as well as for legendary enchanted blades. But it's unlikely that you'll ever rise to his level." 

I was half-aware of his leftmost head nuzzling me in a gentle gesture of affection on the astral, and glanced down at him with a crooked smiled spreading across my face. Somehow, I knew he'd meant every word, and it gave me an oddly tender feeling. 

_I'm not the only one who can grow and change. You can, now, too. I wonder if Ragradia realized when she chained you that to some extent she was doing you a favour._

"I understand." Rashatt's voice was soft and choked-sounding. 

My mate sighed. "No, you don't. Not really. Then again, neither did I, in the days when I was no different from you. Now. Get up. You're my General, after all. Have some pride." 

"Yes, Lord." That fizzy tartness had to be surprise, I decided. Rashatt pushed his projection to his feet and brushed off his knees with a swipe of his hand. 

A flicker of something small moving very fast caught my attention. My mate had never dismissed the scrying spell, and it had been hanging behind Rashatt the whole time, showing the image of confused soldiers moving back and forth and poking at things with the toes of their boots, trying to figure out where their commander had gone. But the small, fast item was . . . 

Then the granary's rear courtyard exploded into whiteness. _What the . . . ?_

"Gaav!" I said sharply, to pull his attention away from Rashatt. I pointed at the scrying-window as he looked up at me and his attention snapped to it. 

"What the fuck?!" My mate heaved himself up out of his chair. "Not a human spell," he added. "Brace yourselves, I'm dissolving this dimension." 

He created a concealment ward around himself as he did it. To me it just looked as though a bit of a heat haze had gathered around him, but to someone—even a Mazoku General or Priest—who didn't already know who he was, he would be difficult to perceive, difficult to remember, and impossible to identify. 

Emerging into the physical was like taking a step into the heart of winter. Ice all over everything, including the soldiers Rashatt had left behind, who were frozen where they'd stood. The three inches or so of snow that had piled on top were melting, but the ice wasn't, and the poor bastards caught in it might die if they weren't thawed out quickly. Unfortunately, just flinging Fireballs around would inevitably burn someone. I could have countered the spell with raw power—it wasn't _that_ strong—but I thought there might be a better way. I subvocalized rapidly, hoping that I remembered all the Chaos Words. 

" _Solar Flare!_ " I growled in Draconic. Despite its harsh name, the spell was a gentle one. It evaporated the ice, and the formerly-frozen soldiers fell to the ground, armour and weapons clattering. I just hoped none of them had landed on anything sharp, because I couldn't spare the time to check on them right now. 

The freezing spell, though. That hadn't been Demona Crystal, or any other form of conventional water shamanism, because none of them produced snow. The only spell I knew of that behaved in the way this one had was . . . was . . . Kilivailet Feffawran, that was it. An elven battle spell. 

Elven? 

Slow applause from behind and above. I turned around slowly, although I had a sick feeling I already knew what I would find. Or rather, who. 

He perched on top of the rear wall of the courtyard. At first glance he didn't appear much changed—same strawberry blonde hair and freckled face, same body that was all knees and elbows and hadn't quite grown into itself yet. Still recognizably Kellelan. Until you realized the weird stalks gathered behind him were _attached_. Four that looked like insect legs, two others tipped with red eyeballs that glared in opposite directions at nothing, and one slimy tentacular length that ended in a sucking mouth, pulsing just above his shoulder. From the look of it, they had to have grown out along his spine. 

"Hi, Val." 

I raised my eyebrows, but forced my voice to come out with an edged tone, rather than a worried one. "I was wondering where you'd wandered off to. Interesting new look, but I don't know if it suits you." 

Kel laughed. "Oh, I can't _begin_ to tell you how well it suits me. _Finally_ I can cast all those damned spells that've been bouncing around in my head since I was a little kid. And I'm getting kind of used to the extra bits. They're handy, sometimes. For instance, they let me do _this_." 

He turned his back to us for a moment, then scrambled down the wall using the four insect legs. 

Rashatt waved his hand, sending a wave of pure force shooting out at the . . . half-elf-Mazoku chimera's unprotected back. I raised my hand and cast a ward between us and Kel, who turned around as the thunder of the two energies colliding rolled through the courtyard. 

"Why the fuck did you block me?!" Rashatt snarled. 

"Because throwing power at everything isn't always the right answer." 

"Because you're a sentimental fucking _mortal_ who values lives above anything else, you mean! I still don't get why Gaav-sama ever favoured you! How can that weakness _ever_ become a strength?" 

"It generates loyalty," I said in a calm, even tone. "But that's another thing you wouldn't understand." 

"Bastard!" 

"Val, if you dropped Gavrik in favour of this guy, I think I'm going to cry," Kel said, although he looked more like he was trying hard not to laugh. 

"I am not 'this guy'—I am Rashatt, own General to Chaos Dragon Gaav! And I'm going to flatten you, you little shit!" 

"No," I said. "You're not. If there's any flattening to be done here, it's my privilege, not yours." I gave Rashatt a sidelong glare, and smirked as I saw his foot slide backward by around half an inch. "And I haven't dropped anyone," I added to Kel. "I told you before: dragons mate for life. And I made my choice a long time ago. You seem to have struck it up with someone new, though. When do we get to meet your girlfriend?" 

Kel flushed, the tips of his blunt-pointed ears turning cherry red. "Damn it, Val, she isn't my girlfriend! She's . . . How did you even know there _was_ a she?" 

"Somebody saw you when you left the inn." Hopefully he would think it was someone passing by in the street, and not the innkeeper. I could taste Kel's confused emotions, and there was definitely a salty-rich thread of bloodlust in there. Although I wasn't sure he was aware of it himself. Did he even know how badly he'd hurt the soldiers who had been in the courtyard when he'd let off that spell? I'd canceled it quickly enough that they were all still alive, if unconscious, but some of them were going to need some pretty powerful healing magic to deal with frostbite. _Time to move things along._ "I don't think you came here just to talk with me about relationships, though." 

"Well, you always were sharp. I'm here with a message from my mistress to your skunk-striped friend there." 

"So let's hear it," I said. 

"Okay, then, let's see, um . . . 'Huraker, own Priest to Deep-Sea Dolphin, greets Rashatt, former General to the traitor Gaav. Be advised that my mistress has taken a liking to the kingdom of Dils. You and yours are invited to withdraw within the next three days. If not, we will take it upon ourselves to remove you, in accordance with our mistress' orders.'" 

"Does that 'we' include you, Kel?" I asked before Rashatt could say anything. 

Kel frowned. It was as though he hadn't thought about it. "I . . . assume so. Yes." 

"Do you understand what she's going to want you to do?" 

A shrug. "Chase your skunk-striped friend and any allies he may have out of the city. I'm not sure that includes you. Are you Rashatt-san's ally?" 

I ignored that. "Do you honestly think he'll leave without a fight? What do you think is going to happen to anyone who gets in the way?" 

Kel rolled his eyes. "I'm not a _child_ , Val. I know there's probably going to be some violence." He tasted of irritation, but also of disquiet. Or at least I hoped that wasn't just my imagination. 

I sighed. " _Probably_ , nothing. There _will_ be violence, and probably a lot of casualties. I've tangled with these people before, Kel. Gaav was the only high-ranking Mazoku who ever cared about human lives. The others kill mortals just because having fewer _livestock_ around makes things simpler. You should understand by now what it means to feed off fear and pain, and if you don't, you _will_." 

"Yes, you would know all about that, wouldn't you . . . _Valgaav_. You liar. Although I suppose I should have known just from the name. Gavrik was one of the Chaos Dragon's subordinates, wasn't he? That's how you _really_ met. And the rest was all bullshit. So much for friendship. So much for _honesty_. You're not even worth _talking_ to." 

I was shocked by the level of pain in him as he spoke. It seemed that he really did feel that I'd betrayed him . . . and, thinking about it, I had, in a way. I'd been his closest friend, the most important person in his life outside his immediate family, and I'd thrown him aside. Not just once, but repeatedly, and with force. Because from my end, he'd been just a leftover from my false hatchling life. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ I chastised myself, knowing that it was too late to fix it. 

Kel waved his hand, and there was a thunderous sound as a blizzard of white filled the courtyard. I blocked it, protecting the unconscious soldiers near the granary wall—there wasn't enough power in it to do much more than chill me, but it might have killed the unprotected and already hypothermic humans, and I didn't think we were in a position where we needed to do that yet. Rashatt said something vile in a dead language and threw himself into the ice and snow and wind. When the storm dissipated a moment later, he was standing on the courtyard wall, hands on hips, facing out at the alley on the far side. 

"Little fucker ran away!" he called without turning around. 

"He still hasn't figured you out, at least," I said to Gaav, who had watched all this in silence. 

"This wasn't aimed at me. Are _you_ all right, little dragon?" 

"I have to be, don't I? We have more important things to worry about." But that was a non-answer, and I knew it as well as anyone else. 

"Gaav-sama?" Rashatt addressed his master cautiously. 

"Huraker isn't going to stop until she drags us into the game," my mate said. "What a pain in the ass. Well, fucked if I'm going to play by her rules. Put those minions you've picked up to work and have the city searched. Her new pet can't withdraw to the astral. Find him and put him under surveillance." 

"What about . . . my other master?" 

"Zilstan, or whatever the fuck his name is? For now, pretend you're still working for him. I'll probably drop in on him tomorrow to tell him what's what." My mate smirked. 

Dealing with the injured soldiers took a good half an hour. Rashatt got help from the nearest temple, which was hilarious when you thought about it. Too bad I couldn't find it in myself to laugh. 

It would have been easier if I could have brought myself not to care, about Kel or about anyone or anything else in the city. Sometimes I thought I could almost remember what that had been like, those days when I had been separated from my mate and unable to care about anything except the pain, but the pain itself made it impossible to return to that state. No one steps into hell of his own free will. 

All I could do was let my thoughts spin around and around in my head, searching for a way out—for a way to pry Kel loose from Huraker and return him to his family in more or less one piece, and why in hell did _I_ have to be responsible for this crap? I wasn't supposed to be the half-elf's minder. It was Jillas who had accepted responsibility for him. Of course, I'd kind of accepted responsibility for Jillas . . . Round and round and round. 

It was the smell of smoke that snapped me out of it, when Gaav teleported us to an alley not far from our inn. It was thick in my nostrils, almost choking. Either the entire city was fumigating every building at once, or something was burning down somewhere nearby. Which was always bad news if you hadn't started the fire yourself. 

It wasn't until I left the alley that I discovered the building involved was our inn. Not that we'd been storing anything important there, but if Jillas had been there . . . 

I started to run. 

There were a lot of people clustered outside in the street—there always are—but I pushed my way through them, literally throwing one man out of my way when he didn't move fast enough. The innkeeper was in the innermost line of people, and I grabbed him by the collar. 

"What the fuck happened, and where's Jillas?!" 

"A-arson! It was arson! The fox shot the arsonist, kept him from blocking the door and probably saved most of our lives, but h-his gun exploded—" 

"Where?!" I snarled again, and the man pointed shakily into the burning building. "You _left him_?" 

"P-pretty sure he was d-dead—" 

I threw the man aside with a snarl, invoked a protective spell, and plunged forward into the inferno.


	25. Chapter 25

" _Jillas!_ " My voice was barely audible over the roar of the flames, even though I was yelling with all my strength. 

A fist tapped me on the top of the head. "Val, stop panicking! You're acting like a mortal. If he's still alive, he's over here." My mate grabbed me by the wrist and began to tow me forward along what had been a hallway, flames parting before our various magic protections. Of course, a little thing like a burning building wasn't going to inconvenience a Dark Lord. 

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to take a deep breath. He was right: I was panicking. It wasn't like me, but the damned fox had been a fixture in my life for long enough that the thought of losing him sent little ripples of fear stuttering along my spine. Now that I was thinking again, instead of just reacting, I could sense a faint, guttering nexus of frustration up ahead. One living person, still trapped in this. 

Then I saw a small form collapsed in the middle of the hall, and I lost control of myself again, running forward with a cry. Behind me, Gaav cursed, and the _crunch-crunch_ of his footsteps speeded up. 

Red fox fur should have been almost the same colour as the fire all around us, but it was charred and splattered with blood. Jillas had collapsed on his stomach, and when I rolled him over . . . well, if I hadn't been so used to battle-wounds, I might have gagged. There was a nasty burn across his front, and, well . . . _his gun exploded_ , the innkeeper had said. While it was in his hands. Some of his fingers were just . . . gone. But he was still breathing, more steadily now that there was a bubble of cool, clean air around him, and I was damned if I was going to lose him without a fight. 

"Blessed, humble hand of divinity—" I began, then stopped again as a small hand with three fingers missing brushed over my lips for a moment, leaving behind the taste of blood and ash. 

"Not worth it, Valgaav-sama," Jillas whispered, and I could hear him clearly despite the roar of the fire, so focused was I on him. "Even if you patch me up, I'll still be old an' feeble. Totter along for a couple more years, and then something like this'll just happen again. Save your energy. Can't cure old age, Filia-sama always said—best you can do is hold it off for a while." 

"Nothing a _mortal_ can do, maybe," Gaav said, pulling his sword from its scabbard. A burning wooden beam fell from above us, and he sent it spinning off into the fire with an absent twitch of his power. "And while I don't give a flying fuck about you personally, my mate values you and you're clearly loyal to him. So. Do you want to live, Jillas Jillos Jilles?" 

The fox's good eye opened wide. "You'd turn me into a Mazoku chimera? Like Valgaav-sama?" 

A shrug. "It would actually be easier than de-aging you, and you'd be more use to us that way, even though you're not capable of holding very much power. You wouldn't have Val's old problems, if that's what you're worried about. You're not a dragon. So? I'm willing to offer you choice, for your master's sake, but I'd also like to be out of here before the floor joists go and the whole building falls through into the basement." 

Jillas' narrow tongue darted out to lick his lips. The hesitation lasted half a breath. "Yeah. Do it. Already made my choice when I decided to follow the two of you. Truth is, I don't really want t'die," the fox said with a forced, slightly sick smile. "Been fighting that for a while now." 

I grabbed the fox's more-intact hand as Gaav drew his sword back. "Brace yourself—this is going to hurt like a son of a bitch." 

"I figured," Jillas said. Then the sword stabbed down, and he screamed. 

I forced myself to shift my perceptions over to the astral as the fox's hand clenched around mine, figuring that would be the more useful level on which to observe this. The impressions were chaotic: Gaav's foreclaw delicately piercing the fox's chest, Jillas' hand wrapped around my talons although it couldn't possibly have been large enough to span them. But then, size didn't mean the same thing here as it did on the physical. 

Jillas' astral form began to dim, the round globe of his soul becoming visible among the flickers, and two of my mate's heads breathed out. The left one produced a red mist that settled around the fox, blanketing him and containing his soul, and the right one pushed out a globe of energy the size of a human head that floated toward us at a leisurely rate. The central head was raised high, keeping an eye on it all. 

When the ball of energy struck, Jillas screamed and writhed as his astral form was suffused with bright light. It more than doubled in size and became much more dense that it had been originally. I thought there had also been some slight changes in its form, but it was difficult to tell. 

I returned my attention to the physical plane in time to see the last of the colour leach out of Jillas' fur, leaving him a sparkling silvery white. And the hand locked around mine in a death-grip had all of its fingers again. 

"Can you walk?" I asked as my mate withdrew his sword/talon, and Jillas' pain began to lessen. 

"Don't think so," the fox sighed. "Sorry, Valgaav-sama." 

"Don't be. I felt like shit afterwards too—the first time, anyway. The second time was . . . different." I gave Gaav a quick grin over Jillas' head. "Still, we have to get out of here before we have to explain why we survived having the building fall in on top of us, so I'm going to carry you. Don't fight me." 

"Of course not, Valgaav-sama." 

When I picked Jillas up, he sighed and closed his eye, going limp. My mate threw an illusion of his former self over him, and we cleared out as quickly as we could. 

People frankly stared at us as we emerged from the flames. The innkeeper, at the front, was wringing his hands. 

"He's alive," I told the man. "He'll recover. No thanks to you." 

The innkeeper trembled, but tears also appeared on his face. "I'm glad, sir. And I'm sorry." 

In my arms, Jillas stirred. "'S alright," he murmured. "Easier to be strong when you've faced death before . . ." 

"We're going to need another inn," I added. "Any ideas?" 

The man was more than glad to direct us to a competitor a few streets over. The new inn did have a small common room, currently empty, as everyone was out gawking at the fire. The woman behind the bar eyed our soot-streaked selves with distaste, but a bit of gold alleviated that, and we soon had a small suite with master bedroom, sitting room, and an alcove bed for a servant. 

Jillas stirred again as I laid him on the narrow mattress. "Like to get my clothes off before I go t'sleep, Valgaav-sama, if it's all the same t'you. Been feeling a bit squished in here, ever since . . ." He made an eloquent gesture with his hands. 

"Go ahead," I said, stepping back. His clothes were in pretty bad shape to begin with, charred and bloody and full of holes. I figured that the first thing I was going to teach him to do with his new powers would be to clean and mend them . . . but not until morning. 

Jillas didn't seem to mind that I was watching him. Then again, I'd seen the fox naked more than a few times, and like most beast-people, his private parts were half-hidden in the fur anyway. Those didn't seem to be what he was concerned about, though, and I understood why when he pulled his pants down and five tails popped out instead of his usual one, which had already been sticking out through the opening left for it in the back of his trousers. 

"Bugger me," the fox muttered, examining them. "Still more fur than solid, but I'm gonna have t'get something with an extra-large tail-hole if I don't want half of 'em cramped up against my rump. Uncomfortable, that." 

"At least you didn't suddenly grow a horn for no apparent reason," I pointed out. 

Jillas' ears flicked, and he chuckled. "I s'ppose there is that. Least I'm used to having a tail, and the bleach job isn't so bad." Then his expression got very odd, and he raised his hand to his eyepatch. "Couldn't be . . . could it?" 

"Your hands healed," I pointed out. "So did my wounds, back then. Take it off." 

Jillas took a deep breath and lifted the patch off over his ear. Underneath it, he had closed eyelids, not the gaping empty socket a long-ago arrow had left him with. He opened it, and I caught a glimpse of red between the lids before he yelped and shut it again. 

"That's gotta be the weirdest thing I ever saw," the fox said, rubbing at his new eye. "Ah, hell, I'll figure it out in the morning. G'night, Valgaav-sama." 

"Good night, Jillas," I said as he drew the curtain around the bed shut. 

A familiar hand slid down over my shoulder, fingers slipping between the laces that held the front of my shirt in place. "We've got a bed to break in too," my mate rumbled in my ear. 

"Don't you ever think about anything else?" I asked. 

"Most of the time, actually. It's just that you're adorable when you're confused." 

I growled softly. "'Adorable' is how you describe fluffy little kittens. Or hatchlings." 

"So would it be better to say you look sexy when you're confused?" The words were punctuated by a light nibble on my ear. "Your fox is seeing the astral through that eye of his, I think. Harmless, but it'll take him a while to make sense of it." 

"Gaav?" 

"Hmm?" 

"Thank you. For saving him." 

"Eventually, it would have occurred to you to try it yourself. It would have taken longer, though, since you've never used your power that way before, and you might have fucked it up. We should probably try it, later. Easy enough to find a willing guinea pig." 

"You're talking about . . . making an army of chimeras . . . aren't you?" The words came out slowly, with pauses whenever his hands or his mouth found a particularly sensitive spot. 

"They do seem to combine the best of both worlds. Mortal loyalty and Mazoku power. Of course, we're going to have to be careful, because they're not going to be as loyal as you. We'll have to pick them carefully and work at keeping them. But the alternative is picking through the others' dregs, and fucked if I'll do _that_ again. Especially considering what we ended up with the last time." 

I wrinkled my nose at unpleasant memories. "Okay, so . . . an army of chimeras. What are you going to do with them?" 

"Make sure—" He stopped in mid-sentence as my stomach growled. 

"We did skip supper," I said with a wry half-grin. Irritated at my own body. Normally, an adult dragon in good health can live on astral energy alone for several days at a time, but my Mazoku feeding seemed to interfere with that. 

"So we did. Downstairs, then? I think they had sandwiches or something." 

"That should do for tonight." 

I slapped a ward on the door to the suite on the way out, just in case . . . although I was hoping that nothing else would happen tonight. I didn't doubt that what had happened to the other inn had been aimed at us, but we should have a grace period of a day or so while they figured out where we'd moved to. "They" being Huraker, with a side of Zilstan. 

The woman behind the bar was more welcoming now that she knew we had lots of money. She didn't bat an eyelash when we ordered a six-person platter of food, plus beer and tea to wash it down with, and the food and drinks were there promptly. 

That wasn't the only thing that came to our table, though. I had an egg salad sandwich in one hand and was just reaching for my tea with the other when the door of the inn slammed open and Hen-chan, of all people, came barrelling inside. 

"Is it true?" he demanded, tripping over his robe as he reached our table and nearly face-planting among the sandwiches. 

I raised an eyebrow. "Which 'it'?" I asked, as Sorrel, who had apparently been following his nephew, closed the door carefully behind him, walked over to the younger man, and hit him over the head. 

"I told you to calm down," the older man said. "Sorry about that," he added to us. "We heard about the inn. We didn't figure that either of _you_ had been hurt, but we weren't quite so sure about Kel and Jillas-san." 

"Kel . . . wasn't at the inn when it burned," I said. "Jillas was hurt, but we managed to pull him out. He's upstairs, asleep." 

"There's something you aren't saying," Sorrel observed. 

I grimaced. _Better they know, or if they run into him in the street . . ._ "Kel may have been the one who told the arsonist where we were staying. If you see him, try not to make contact." 

Hen-chan blinked. "How—what— _why_?" His voice cracked on the last word. 

I looked at Gaav, because I had no idea how to handle this. My mate sighed, but rose to the challenge. "Sometime in the past couple of days, the Dark Lord Deep-Sea Dolphin became interested in what was happening here and sent one of her major minions in. Who then recruited the damned half-elf by offering him Mazoku power. You know how badly he wanted to be able to do magic." 

"They turned him into a chimera," I added. "We were fighting him just before we found out about the inn." 

Hen-chan went white, and I think he would have fallen if Sorrel hadn't pulled out a chair and pushed him into it. 

"You . . . you didn't _kill_ him," the young mage said. 

I shook my head. "He ran away. But he isn't the same person as he was. Stay away from him if you run into him." 

"A chimera," Sorrel said, slowly, thoughtfully. "Like you?" He nodded to Gaav. 

"Yes and no," my mate replied. "Normally, chimeras are produced from two or more complete beings and have the memories and consciousness of both. I didn't have much of a chance to study the half-elf when he popped up, so I can't tell whether Huraker fused him with another Mazoku or just stuffed him with a hunk of her power. If the latter, it might be possible to snap him out of it, but if she fused him, the being you knew as Kellelan is, effectively, dead." 

"And the difference between you and him is . . . ?" Sorrel prompted. 

Gaav scowled. "My consciousness is entirely Mazoku—and you're getting too fucking nosy for my tastes." 

"Okay, okay, didn't mean to pry," the bearded merc said, spreading his hands. "You . . . weren't kidding about starting another Kouma War, were you? How many Mazoku does this make running around town?" 

"Two factions' worth, which is one more than we need," I admitted with a grimace. "We may be able to get it under control. Whether we're also going to be able to pry Kel loose—assuming that's even possible anymore—is anyone's guess." 

"Are you even going to try?" Hen-chan asked sharply. 

I gave him a Look. "Now you sound just like him. Yes, I'm going to try. It's my fault, pretty much, that he ended up involved in this in the first place. But we can't afford to make him our priority." 

"It was _not_ your fucking fault," my mate said sharply. "The stupid brat wanted power too badly, Val. He would have bent over and offered his ass to Ruby-Eye himself if he'd thought it would get him what he wanted." 

I scowled. I knew about obsession and the stupid things it could lead a person to do. I just felt that, this once, for this particular person, I should have been able to stop it. Because part of the reason he'd cracked was that I'd dumped him as a friend. 

Maybe Gaav saw things more clearly in this case. I knew his sense of responsibility was different—although, unlike many Mazoku, he at least had one. But there were parts of myself that I couldn't surrender, even to him. 

"We've only got three options with respect to him right now," I said grimly. "Catch him and use a time-reversal spell to undo the chimerization. Recruit him. Or . . ." I didn't need to finish the thought. Even Hen-chan understood, judging from the sick expression that now crossed his face. 

There wasn't a damned thing I could do about that, either. 

"Starting to wish you'd never met me yet?" I asked the young mage. 

He blinked, head jerking up. "No! Not ever. I mean . . . I might never have a chance to be involved in something this big again. Escort duty and monster exterminations don't get you into the history books." 

I grimaced. "We're trying to keep this _out_ of the history books." The human ones, at least. The return of the Chaos Dragon would inevitably make the Mazoku ones. If Mazoku kept history books, or any books at all. I'd never seen one. There were Mazoku languages, and I knew a couple of them, but they didn't have written forms. 

"Anything that makes human histories generally ends up being shitty for everyone involved," my mate added. "Like the fucking Kouma War—both sides lost that one. And this is getting to be almost as complicated. What a fucking mess. Deep-Sea, renegades, human politics, _and_ we still have to bust that fucking stuffed toy out of the royal menagerie." 

"We could always have Rashatt ask for him as a wedding present." I said. 

Gaav chuckled, good humour restored. "He'd hate you forever . . . but it might not be such a bad idea, at that. Two birds with one stone." 

"Whoa, whoa, back up here," Sorrel said. "Stuffed toy? You don't mean that Pokota character, do you? Royal menagerie? _Wedding present?_ " 

"If we answer any of that, you're going to be even more deeply involved," I said. "Is that what you want?" 

" _Yes!_ " Hen-chan said loudly, but I was looking at his uncle, who frowned, then sighed. 

"I know the captain doesn't approve, but I'm going to die of curiosity if I don't find out what's going on, and _so far_ it doesn't seem to be very dangerous." 

"You're asking us to take responsibility for your welfare, human," my mate rumbled. "Do you understand what that means?" 

"We're not asking you to do anything except talk," Sorrel said. 

"Bullshit. Our choices are to look after you or let you get killed by whatever minor minion of Dolphin's finds you first. Letting you get killed has a knock-on effect, though, because if I'm not mistaken, that fucking half-elf still considers the mage-brat a friend. Get it? I'm really starting to think I should grab the lot of you and stuff you in a nice safe jail in Tsemmet or something until this is over." 

"So why don't you?" 

"Kel would notice, and stirring him up would just make things worse," I said. 

"Mmh. All right, then, I guess that _does_ mean we're asking for your protection, in a round-about kind of way. And no, I'm not altogether sure about what that means to you. How could I be? I've never dealt with a . . . Mazoku . . . before, and I get the impression you're not very conventional anyway." 

"Fortunately for you. Any other Mazoku would demand the most demeaning price they thought they could get away with." Gaav scowled at nothing for a moment, then waved his hand over the surface of the table. Two small medallions appeared there. "Take those. Keep them on you. Don't show them to anyone. They'll provide you with some limited protection against Mazoku power, and alert me if another Mazoku attacks you. I don't guarantee a fucking rescue, understand—in general, you're not going to be high on my list of priorities, given that you're not going to be of much use to me after the next few days. I might check up on you if I'm bored enough, though." 

Hen-chan picked up his medallion eagerly. Sorrel was more dubious, his hand hesitating in midair before he brought it down. I could understand why: the dull silvery metal had a slowly moving swirl of red incorporated into it, the exact colour of fresh blood. 

"How do we know that protecting us is _all_ these do?" Sorrel asked with a frown. 

My mate smirked. "You don't. That's the risk you take. And all Mazoku are liars. Including me. Including that fucking half-elf. Including Val, who's more or less Mazoku by adoption." 

"You're not going to scare us off, you know," Hen-chan said. 

"I know. You're young and fucking stupid—the second easiest kind of person to corrupt, after the ones who want something really badly and can't get it for themselves. So. Short version. Yes, it's that fucking idiot Pokota who's gotten himself locked up in Queen Thalia's menagerie of exotics. The queen has a crush on Rashatt, of all people. Rashatt submitted to Val and me just a couple of hours ago—that's what we were doing when the arsonist was at the inn. That good enough?" 

Sorrel just nodded. 

"Are you really going to make Rashatt marry the queen?" Hen-chan asked. 

"We haven't decided yet," I said. "First, we need to deal with the person he was working for, and throw Deep-Sea's followers out on their asses. If we did make him do it, it would serve him right, though." And it would be nicely in line with Gaav's old plan for destroying the King in the North, the one that had fallen apart after . . . Phibrizzo. 

"Oh." Hen-chan looked down at the medallion in his hands, apparently trying to absorb all of this. "Well, um, good luck." 

He pushed away from the table again, and headed for the door. Sorrel rolled his eyes. 

"Damned kid . . . sorry about that. We'll be seeing the two of you around." 

All was blessedly quiet for a moment or three. Then Gaav made a small gesture, drawing a sound-ward over us, and tapped a thin line running through the astral, one I hadn't noticed before. 

" . . . want to help Kel, Uncle Sorrel! You heard Val—they 'can't afford to make him their priority'. So I'm going to make him mine." 

"Hendrick—" 

"Don't 'Hendrick' me! If I don't do something, _Kel is going to die_. I could feel it even if they didn't say it." 

"We're human. Watching is one thing, but we can't—" 

"Like hell we can't! Lina Inverse has been beating up Dark Lords for _decades_ now, so it _has_ to be possible for a human to make a difference!" 

"Lina Inverse is powerful, lucky, _and_ smart. And, according to everyone but Zelgadis, ruthless, too." 

"And we're not in the middle of a fight between Dark Lords, just lesser Mazoku!" 

"Not lesser by very much, I don't think. Rashatt, Huraker . . . Val describes them as 'strong'. So does Gavrik. It's pretty clear that they both knew the Chaos Dragon in person. A Dark Lord. A fucking _god_. What does someone like that describe as a 'strong' Mazoku? The top level right under the Dark Lords, I bet. And they're on something like that level themselves." Shuffling noises. "Hell, I'm right on the edge of convincing myself that even spectating is dangerous." 

"I still have to try." 

"That bullheaded little idiot," I said, interrupting the flow of sound from outside. "Still, I suppose it's better to know for sure that he's going to try something stupid. At least we can be ready. Did you add a tracer as well as a bug?" 

"I'm the one who taught _you_ this shit, remember? Here's the imprint." Explaining exactly what he communicated to me just then, and how, isn't possible in human words, but when he was done, I knew which of the hundred thousand astral traces hanging around us led to Sorrel and to Hen-chan. "Not that I expect them to be going anywhere really interesting for a while. The mage-brat doesn't know where to find the half-elf. Yet." 

"You're using them as bait." 

Gaav shrugged. "Call it Plan B, with Rashatt's minions as Plan A. It isn't like we can fucking stop them without locking them up . . . or did I judge this one wrong? Do you care about them more than I think?" 

I shook my head. "It's fine. I'm just kind of wondering what else can go wrong." 

"Little dragon, I learned a long time ago that it isn't safe to ask that question. The Golden One might be listening, and She delights in coming up with scenarios that Her children have never even thought of." 

The only word that came to mind there was, _Ugh_.


	26. Chapter 26

I'd hoped that we'd have until morning before anything else happened. Physically, I could have kept going if I'd needed to, but I was emotionally exhausted, and glad to go to bed. 

I woke with a jerk as an explosion shook the city. 

"Fuck," Gaav muttered. I got the impression that, unlike me, he hadn't slept. "You can stay here while I check it out if you like, little dragon." 

"Not on your life," I growled. "Did you honestly think I'd ever let you leave me behind again?" 

"Not without a good reason," he admitted. "All right, come on, then." 

"Valgaav-sama?" 

"Stay here, Jillas." The fox understood the difference between an order and a request. Usually. Hopefully, this time, he'd listen. 

"Be careful out there. My new eye feels like it's gonna burn up." 

"I don't intend to do anything reckless." _After all, I have a lot to live for._ I glanced up at my mate with a smirk. 

Gaav wrapped himself in a concealment ward again before teleporting us both back up onto the roof. We couldn't have gone much further without drawing a whole lot of attention, because there was a massive ward arching over the entire city, meant to block Mazoku from getting in or out. I tested it with the least thread of power, and wrinkled my nose. 

"Feels like dead fish," I said, and my mate grunted agreement. 

"Huraker's work. But the explosion wasn't hers, and the ward isn't powerful enough to bar anything stronger than a mid-ranker." 

"What's the point, then?" 

A pause, then, "Fuck. Thinning the riffraff. Don't know how I missed it before. They didn't just _let_ Rashatt gather all the disaffected minor Mazoku here, they _encouraged_ it. Quicker to finish them off that way." 

"The question is, do we stop it, or ignore it?" 

"The explosion was Rashatt. We may not need to do anything." But his eyes burned. Although he might claim otherwise, I knew that he hated hiding, hated sneaking around, and especially hated not being able to fight anyone at something close to his own weight class. And he wasn't the only one who felt that way. We both loved the contest, the sense of pitting our strength against that of another. Mortals had always misinterpreted that, saying that the Chaos Dragon loved war and destruction for their own sakes, when they were more like side effects. 

There was a sudden flicker of power that felt like damp and seaweed, like Huraker's but unlike, and several blocks of the city vanished in a flash of white light. 

"Riksfalto," Gaav rumbled. Then he sighed. "It looks like we're going to have to get involved after all if we want to salvage anything from this. Go after her. I'll be half a step behind you." He scowled as he said it, though, and I knew he was going to stay behind the concealment ward if he could. Even if he hated it. 

I reached out with my powers, found damp-and-death-and-seaweed projecting into the physical plane as a green-haired woman in light armour with an odd, triple-bladed sword grounded at her side, and took myself over to the rooftop she was standing on. Simultaneously, I pulled the false Ragud Mezegis from my back and invoked it with a thought, striking for her undefended shoulder. 

She spun and raised her blade to block it, but then I hadn't really expected it to land. What followed was a fast and furious exchange of blows, accelerating rapidly and spiralling in and out of the astral until any human watchers wouldn't have seen anything but a couple of odd-coloured globes of light, clashing and pulling apart. 

After a couple of minutes of this, we landed on a different roof, some ten feet apart. I was breathing hard. She wasn't, but of course a projection doesn't need to breathe at all. She did look as though I'd surprised her. 

"Who are you?" she asked. 

"Valgaav." 

"The Chaos Dragon's . . . Ah, I see. That would be why you fight so well." 

I offered her a razor-edged grin. "You're not bad yourself." 

She gave me a nod. "You have . . . my sympathies, with regards to your master's death—is that how you say it? I never quite got the hang of that kind of mortal stuff . . ." 

"Close enough, and thank you. Although I'm surprised you care." Most Mazoku wouldn't have bothered to say anything of the sort, unless it was sarcastic or used to improve their imitation of a mortal, but Riksfalto tasted sincere. 

"I respected him. Gaav-sama was both the most gifted fighter among the Dark Lords, and the most straightforward in his dealings with others. Although many, including my own mistress, might disagree, I consider the Mazoku race to be the poorer for his death." 

_Interesting._ Was there perhaps the tiniest chance we might be able to pry her loose from Deep-Sea Dolphin? I filed the information away. 

"Unfortunate that we have to be enemies," was all I said. 

"I've got to admit, I'm kind of confused. Why are you protecting this human town? I mean, I know you're part dragon, but I didn't think dragons cared much about humans either." 

I shrugged. "You seem to be intent on stamping out something of mine." 

"Oh?" 

"Rashatt belongs to me. Inherited, you might say. So by wiping out his minions, you're acting against my interests." 

"Ah, well, I suppose we don't have a choice, then. I was ordered to 'wipe out Rashatt and his renegades'." 

"It's an easy enough directive to wriggle around," I said. 

Riksfalto scowled, her casual attitude abruptly gone. "Just who do you think I am, Xellos? I don't do that." 

I raised my eyebrows. "You never exercise your own judgement? At all?" 

"I complain to Dolphin-sama's face—I don't sneak around her back. Did the Chaos Dragon know what you were doing?" 

"He only once gave me an order I was inclined to try to fight," I said, shaking my head. 

"Oh?" 

"'Stay here—I'll be back after I've wrung some information out of that slimy little cone,'" I misquoted, dropping my voice to a deep rumble that really didn't sound much like my mate's. "And he'd always been right before, so I repressed my instincts and didn't actually try to follow him. The next thing I knew, Xellos was knocking on my door to tell me that Gaav had been killed by Phibrizzo." 

"'Slimy little cone,'" Riksfalto repeated, with a grin. "Oh, that's perfect! I'll have to remember to call Xellos that, the next time I see him." 

"You're assuming you're going to win," I pointed out. 

"Can you afford to anger my mistress by killing me?" she retorted, still grinning. 

I shrugged. "Sooner or later, we'd just clash again. And again. It makes sense to get such a dangerous obstacle out of my path while I can." 

"Too bad. You seem like an interesting person to know." She raised her tripartite blade again . . . and another explosion rocked the city. "I wish they would stop that. Blowing up the city wasn't part of the plan. It was _supposed_ to be a surgical strike." 

"Maybe you should have sent Rashatt the memo," I said. 

"Heh. Maybe you're right." 

Another explosion. Riksfalto jerked and blinked. "And that wasn't Rashatt or Huraker, although it was just as powerful as either of them. What the hell is going on?" 

"I think that was Zilstan." 

"Who?" 

"You jumped into this without knowing?" 

There was a bright flash in the air, and I braced myself for the blast wave, which struck a split second later. I turned to Gaav, who was standing by a chimney, feet braced, scowling, and I said, "They're going to destroy the entire damned city at this rate! What do you want to do?" 

"Intervene, I suppose. Although I'm not thrilled about playing our best trump card just in order to save this fucking rabbit warren." 

Riksfalto stiffened. "Wait a minute! That voice . . . !" 

Gaav snapped his fingers and dissolved the concealment ward. Riksfalto looked like she was about to faint. 

"Alive?! But Hellmaster-sama . . ." 

" . . . was a pain in the ass," my mate said impatiently. "And a lot less powerful and effective than he thought he was. And he's gone now, and I'm still here. Let's go kick some ass, little dragon. As for you, you can either come with us or leave the area," he added to Riksfalto. "You're no threat to either of us, alone or with Huraker, but I don't want you sneaking around on the edges of things making trouble." 

A hesitation. Then, "With your permission, I'll come, Gaav-sama." 

"Fair enough." He flexed his power, and space rippled and spat us out on the roof of the half-demolished royal palace. There were three glowing figures floating above us: Huraker, deceptively small and slender, Rashatt, and Zilstan. And a whole bunch of humans scattered around on the ground. Some of them were staring, some of them were hiding, and a few of the braver ones were trying to move some of the rubble from the collapsed sections to free others trapped inside. 

And Gaav . . . flared. Loosening all the restrictions he normally placed on his power and letting it expand outward until a spectral three-headed dragon reared above him. 

" _Just what the fuck do you idiots think you're doing?!_ " His voice was as much dragon as human, thundering out with such force that it was probably heard by everyone under the ward-dome Huraker had created. 

"Trying to stay alive, Gaav-sama," Rashatt said. He looked slightly singed. Beside him, Zilstan jerked, his mouth moving silently. 

"And for that, you blow up the fucking city?" My mate sighed in exasperation. "I _know_ I've told you that peripheral damage isn't usually a good thing, you useless waste of space!" 

"So the rumour about you brown-nosing to the humans was true, even thought the one about your death wasn't," Huraker said thoughtfully, looking down at us. "A sad end for— _augh!_ " 

The savage downward strike of a mostly-illusory dragon head shouldn't have done anything . . . or at least, that was how it looked if you could only perceive the physical. On the astral, Gaav's true body was solid, and the great teeth sheared into Huraker's multi-armed astral form (I'm not sure whether she was supposed to be an octopus or a squid, but my general reaction was one of revulsion). Her cry on that plane was also much louder, and I winced and gripped my false Ragud Mezegis more tightly to keep from reflexively covering my ears. 

The head's arc ended right at ground level, smashing Huraker's physical projection against the stones of the courtyard. Beside me, Gaav stepped lightly off the roof and let himself drop down until he was standing over her. He had one hand in his pocket and the other holding his sword propped casually against his shoulder as he toed the unfortunate Priest in the ribs with one big boot. 

"Fucking ironic," my mate said. "The entire Mazoku race is being done in by inflexibility. The freedom of choice that mortals possess isn't a fucking consolation prize, you know. In fact, I'm starting to think that it's the greatest power there is. The day I decided that if I ever saw Ruby-Eye again, I'd tell him to get bent . . . it changed everything." 

He kicked Huraker in the ribs again, just for emphasis, I guess. Her response was along the lines of " _Ghk!_ " 

"Tell Dolphin that she should just go back to her half-assed little staring match with Vrabazard and leave the world above the ocean's surface alone," my mate continued. "If I catch her sticking her fingers into things around here again, I'm going to chop them off, and she can spend the time while she's regrowing them thinking about what a fucking idiot she's been. Got it?" 

Huraker made a croaking noise. 

"I'll take the message if she doesn't," Riksfalto said, pleasantly enough. 

"Awfully compliant, aren't you?" Gaav raised a bushy eyebrow. 

Riksfalto shrugged. "One of us has to live to report in, and I know better than to think I'd survive challenging you, Gaav-sama." 

"Sensible," my mate rumbled, beginning to draw his power in again. 

Then there was a hoarse shout of "No!" from Rashatt, and a streak of red came plummeting down from the heavens like a falling star. The ground shook as it struck. 

Quietly, I teleported myself down from the roof, taking up a position in my mate's shadow. Rashatt dropped to hide behind us both. 

"You do not exist," said a harsh rasp of a voice. "You _cannot_ exist. You are dead—a ghost—a phantom—" Zilstan's mask hung askew as he confronted his father/twin/doppelganger . . . the being who held the major part of what they once had both been. 

Gaav shrugged. "Someone tried to kill me. I survived it. I'm good at that. You, on the other hand, aren't supposed to exist. Really, you're still only half a thing. What a fucking mess. But if you submit, I'll fix you. Make you whole." 

"And will you give him to me?" Zilstan's uncanny bicoloured gaze turned to me. 

"I'm not a prize to be passed around," I snapped. "I told you, dragons mate for life, and I made my choice long ago. Before _you_ even existed." 

"And even if Val were willing to sacrifice himself, I wouldn't give him up," my mate said. "Besides, he's stronger than you are. Are you willing to submit to him? Didn't think so. You'll just have to find your own fucking partner. Someone you can handle." 

Zilstan's response began with an incoherent cry of rage. " _You!_ If not for you, there wouldn't . . . there would be no need to . . . He would be _mine_!" 

_No._ But I couldn't quite bring myself to say it, because I knew that he was . . . half-right. He would never be my mate, but in the right time and place, I might have accepted him as a consolation prize. Fortunately, that time and place were forever gone, now. 

Red fire flared around Zilstan, and at the same moment, Huraker, half-forgotten, slipped through the astral, aiming for my mate's undefended back. 

I blocked her lashing tentacles with the Ragud Mezegis, one after the other in rapid sequence, a low growl building in my chest. Gaav's attention was still focused in front, and I knew he was trusting me to see that nothing went wrong. Huraker wasn't strong enough to kill him by a long stretch, but if she worked at it, she would be able to cause him some pain before he destroyed her. 

I wasn't going to let him be hurt. Not ever again. 

Then there was a thick cry from behind Gaav and off to one side. _Rashatt._ Riksfalto had him on the run. Gaav and Zilstan were still glaring at each other, trapped in a face-off that would probably explode into violence the instant the balance tilted even the tiniest bit, and I was still fighting Huraker—could I handle them both? _No choice._

"Rashatt! Over here!" I called. 

"Easy for you to say," the General snarled back. His projection was marked with soot, and I wondered fleetingly why he'd bothered to retain that detail. The dark, unbleeding nick in his ear was easier to explain. 

On the astral, the wyvern bugled and lashed its tail, then charged full-tilt at a streamlined creature that defied description—a bit like a sea serpent, a bit like a shark, a bit like a lake dragon, and a lot like a nightmare. The impact sent the two of them rolling in my direction in an awkward ball, and I fought to keep my perception of both planes as I let my left arm scale over and reached for Riksfalto with my talons, still blocking Huraker with the weapon in my right hand. _Fuck._ The effort involved in coordinating everything was making my head swim, and the Lance of Light hadn't been intended for one-handed use, requiring my full dragon strength to wrench it around quickly enough. 

Riksfalto was neither slow nor stupid, unfortunately. I managed to yank my arm back in time to avoid most of her attack, but the outermost blade of her sword left a stinging scratch on the inside of my wrist. Instinctively, I breathed at her, and I don't mean I blew air in her face. Every greater dragon is born with a natural breath weapon that we don't need a spell to use (although the goldens are fond of tacking on the Laser Breath spell to double the force of their attacks). Many of the lesser dragons have them too. 

The results were far beyond my expectations. 

An ancient dragon's Moonshadow Breath is actually a pretty crappy weapon, because it only affects the astral. On the physical, all it does is produce a light show. 

What came out of my mouth wasn't that. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before. Darkness and golden fire, and whatever it touched twisted and dissolved. Riksfalto screamed in distress as part of her astral body melted away. And on the physical, I took out some stone rubble, part of a still-standing wall, and I think a couple of the palace servants, although I didn't intend to. 

It was like I'd breathed out part of the Sea of Chaos, and it scared me shitless, although I was fighting not to show it. Huraker had halted her attack to stare at me. Rashatt was outright gaping as I clamped my mouth shut again. So was Zilstan. Even Gaav turned around, looked at me and the mess I'd made . . . and began to laugh. 

"What the hell was that?!" Huraker asked sharply, in a tone completely at odds with her appearance. "What have the two of you done?!" 

My smile was more of a baring of teeth. "The impossible. We've created something that has never existed before. The Lord of Nightmares' hand inside the world. Care to have a taste of it?" 

"You're insane," the Priest breathed. That made Gaav laugh harder. 

"It's funny," I said. "The desire of all Mazoku is supposedly to return the world to the Sea of Chaos, but whenever something shows you what that would really _mean_ , you come close to pissing your pants. At least when I was trying to destroy the world, I took the job seriously." 

"What are you going to do?" Huraker asked. 

Gaav stopped laughing abruptly. "Maintain the balance of power. Nothing more, nothing less. Tell your mistress that." 

"We will. Come on, Riksfalto. Time to regroup." 

"I agree," Riksfalto said with a grimace. I'd punched a fair-sized hole straight through her torso, and she winced as she put an arm around Huraker's shoulders. The two of them disappeared together. 

"Now that that's done with—" my mate began, and dodged quickly to the side as a sword with a blade of flickering red flame scythed down through the space where he'd been. 

"What the hell have you done to Val?!" Zilstan rasped. 

"Nothing he didn't ask for," Gaav said. 

"You're lying!" 

My mate rolled his eyes. "I'd tell you to ask him, but you seem to think I've brainwashed him or something, so I guess I'll have to beat it into you." 

He didn't waste his time on mortal-speed, physical attacks, although he could probably have suppressed Zilstan to the point where the latter wouldn't have been able to do much of anything on the astral. But instead, Gaav shot in at full speed, and all that was visible on the physical was a pair of lights, one the colour of blood, the other the colour of flame, meeting and parting in an aggressive high-speed dance.


	27. Chapter 27

On the astral, two great beasts tore at each other until crackling mist flowed from the rents in their hides. I didn't dare intervene. In any case, it was clear who had the upper hand, and it wasn't Zilstan. Whenever one of Gaav's heads came up for air, his jaw was slightly open in a dragon grin. 

"So how does it feel, being the damsel in distress?" Rashatt asked from beside me. The nick in his ear was mostly filled in, just a shallow indentation, but he still had black marks on his face and red dragonscale armour. 

"Go screw yourself," I growled, annoyed by his smirk. "Or I'll show you just how much of a damsel I'm not." 

"Not likely. _You_ might survive cheating on Gaav-sama, but he's already pissed off at me." 

I turned and whacked him over the head with my fake Ragud Mezegis, deactivating the blades only at the very last moment. The smirk slid away for a second, then came back so fast it might never have left. I growled. 

"Yoo-hoo! General Rashatt!" 

His smirk slid away again at the sound of that voice. "Oh, _fuck_! Hide me!" 

I snorted. "You can cast your own concealment ward, surely." 

"Not quickly enough! I don't really understand how they perceive—Fucking hell, too late." 

Queen Thalia was wearing a fine nightrobe, lace-trimmed and very feminine, although it was somewhat the worse for wear now, with char marks and stone dust. "And Valgaav-dono too! I'm glad to see that you're both well—I was so worried about darling Rashatt when I realized it was Zilstan's part of the palace that had taken the most damage. I don't suppose one of you could possibly tell me what's going on?" 

Now, what to tell her? Hmm . . . "It's kind of complicated, but the short version is that King Zilstan didn't survive that hunting accident he suffered a few years ago. The person that took his place was a renegade Mazoku, quite possibly insane, and very, very dangerous. Rashatt has been trying to keep the fake Zilstan from harming Dils, and the other Mazoku from finding out that he's here, but the Dark Lord Deep-Sea Dolphin sent a couple of her higher-level followers here a couple of days ago. Once they tracked down not-Zilstan, the lid came off, and so you have a minor Mazoku war taking place in the middle of Gyria City. It should be over soon." 

Queen Thalia froze in place for several seconds with her mouth slightly open. Then her expression firmed and her spine straightened. "Then Rashatt . . ." 

" . . . is one of the Mazoku who followed Chaos Dragon Gaav into exile when Gaav decided he wanted to preserve the world rather than destroying it." I smirked. "You didn't think the _Dragon Lords_ were responsible for keeping your country in one piece, did you? The bastards won't even raise a finger to help other dragons, much less a bunch of humans. Dils is still here because Rashatt cared enough to look after it." 

Rashatt looked like he didn't know whether to thank me or punch me in the face, resulting in a smile that was both sickly and edged. So much for singing _his_ praises. 

Thalia seemed to be digesting what I'd said. "Which leads to the question of who you and your red-headed friend are, and who you're working for," she added at last. 

"Ourselves." 

On the astral, not-Zilstan's ravaged dragonlike form was down on its back, but he still refused to give in, snarling and writhing around to dodge Gaav's strikes. The balls of light on the physical plane were making shorter, more erratic movements now, up above our heads. 

"Really?" 

I shrugged. "I'm the last of my kind." I held up my still-taloned left hand in illustration. "I'm not about to join up with one of the other species of dragons—neither those who slaughtered my clan, nor those who refused to intervene. My . . . red-headed friend, as you put it, is a chimera. He no longer fits in anywhere, and those who were once his kind will no longer accept him." 

"He looks human." 

"Mazoku-human chimeras often do, if the Mazoku half was powerful enough." Which reminded me of something. "By the way . . . that menagerie of yours. Are you certain that nothing you've got locked up in it qualifies as a person?" 

Thalia's head jerked the most minute amount. Feeling a little bit guilty? Good. "I hadn't ever considered it." Definitely guilty, the apple-cinnamon kind. It made me want to lick my lips. 

"The reason I ask is that an acquaintance of ours disappeared, oh, around a week ago. He was in the rather odd position of having had his consciousness placed inside the body of a stuffed toy." 

The guilt was much thicker now. Tasty. "I thought he was just some sort of advanced golem . . ." 

I shook my head. "No, as I understand it, Pokota was originally human. He was transferred into that shell from his dying body. Really, I'm surprised he hasn't broken out of wherever he is by now—did you put some sort of nullification spell on him? He's quite a talented mage . . . a friend of Lina Inverse, in fact." 

"She put a shock collar on him," Rashatt muttered. Now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure Zelgadis had mentioned something of the sort too. 

"Lina Inverse is a myth," Thalia said. "But I understand what you're implying. I'll let him loose, and check to see that I haven't locked up any more . . . people." She forced a smile, still tasting of cinnamon and . . . hmm . . . liquorice? Odd. That wasn't a guilt flavour. I wasn't quite sure what it was. And she was looking at Rashatt again. Did she seriously like him that much . . . ? 

In front of us, the floating lights struck the ground with a _crumph_ , and a triumphant roar blasted out. I saw several people cover their ears, but I could have told them that it wouldn't have helped: the sound originated on the astral, where Gaav had raised his rightmost head to give voice, while the other two were intent on the creature at his feet. 

On the physical, the blood-red light became Gaav's familiar human form, with a broad grin on his face and his sword resting against his shoulder. Blood slimed the gigantic blade. The flame-coloured light flickered for a moment before becoming not-Zilstan, on his hand and knees at Gaav's feet. The false king's mask was gone altogether now, revealing his face for everyone to see, and I tasted the cool, minty flavour of shock from Queen Thalia. 

Not-Zilstan was still glaring up at the being whose shadow he was, defiant, although I could taste his pain. Gaav might have beaten him to a pulp, shredding his clothes and leaving his body marked with cuts and bruises, but he wasn't going to give in. 

"Kill me," he rasped. 

"Surrender," my mate replied. "I don't understand why you're fucking torturing yourself over this. You know you can't beat me." 

Not-Zilstan spat out blood and a tooth. His laugh was more of a harsh rasp. "You're saying that? _You?_ The Dark Lord who had the gall to tell Ruby-Eye himself to go get bent? So if the red-eyed bastard turned up here right now, what would you tell him, Gaav- _sama_? Would you bow down and offer him the back of your neck? Or would you fight, even though you knew it was fucking hopeless?" 

"And what the fuck does that have to do with you and me? Following Ruby-Eye is suicide. Longer and more drawn-out than just letting Phibby tear me into chunks, but it would still end with my death. Better to go out in a fucking blaze of glory . . . and you never know, I might win. Even against dear old Dad. He was never all-seeing or all-knowing, and I've learned a trick or two." 

"And my giving in to you isn't suicide? You want to re-absorb me!" 

"Where the fuck did you get that idea? I—" Gaav paused in mid-sentence, head snapping up. After a moment, I realized I felt it too: a tremble along a line in the astral. Sorrel? 

It was only the briefest of distractions, but not-Zilstan knew how to take advantage of it. In the second before Gaav looked down again, he'd vanished without a trace. 

My mate grabbed the local area of space along the crease not-Zilstan had left behind, refolded it before it could smoothe out completely, and pushed himself through. 

"Go with him," I snapped at Rashatt. "Guard him with your life, because if he doesn't come back, I'm going to make sure that the rest of your existence is a misery." 

The General blinked blankly at me. "Where are you going to be?" 

"Busy." I grimaced and then grabbed onto the signal thread that lead back to the token Gaav had given to Sorrel. The mercenaries' involvement in all this was mostly my fault, which made them my responsibility. I'd follow my mate as soon as I checked on them, gritting my teeth all the while against the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Gaav wasn't in danger unless not-Zilstan led him right into the arms of one of the other Dark Lords—or a Dragon God—and I doubted the bastard had those kinds of connections. He was safe, I told myself. He was _safe_. 

My own teleport left me in a dimly-lit alley that stank of spilled blood and the non-scent of ice. Hen-chan was kneeling on the ground with the medallion Gaav had given him in one hand, holding it toward a familiar, menacing figure. He was crying, with tears and snot running down his face, seeming unable to stop and wipe them away. Foltig and Erig stood behind him, tense, with weapons drawn, but they weren't moving forward—weren't moving at all, except to breathe. Behind them, two knives stuck up out of the ground. _Shadow Snap_. And Sorrel lay in front of Hen-chan, face rimed with frozen blood, but I couldn't stop to see whether he was alive or not, because of the other person also present. 

Kellelan had an insect leg against either wall of the alley, with the other two braced against the ground, holding him in place against any attack. 

The air was full of negative emotions: anger, hate, terror, despair . . . shame? Where was _that_ coming from? 

Knowing the weakness of the Shadow Snap spell, I cast a Lighting behind the small group of mercenaries. Foltig and Erig lurched forward as soon as their shadows vanished. 

The only sounds in the alley were Hen-chan's sobs and the crunch of my footsteps on the frozen mud as I positioned myself between Kel and the others. 

"Hey, Val," Kel said with a smile. "I was just cleaning up a few loose ends—I didn't mean to bother you." 

"Loose ends? What are you babbling about?" I had the Ragud Mezegis in my hands, but I didn't activate it. Not yet. Not until I decided what I wanted to do about him. 

Kel tilted his head to one side. "Well, it occurred to me that not many people know what happened to me, now that I've dealt with the fox. Really, I thought it was just you and your boyfriend, until Hen-chan there started blabbing about it." 

"Why should that matter?" 

"Because if no one knows, then my family's never going to find out what I've done. I figured . . . it would be better that way. For Kellelan Felwrassen to just disappear." 

Shame. I understood now why the air would be full of that flavour. 

I gave him a lazy smile. "You're killing people because you're afraid of getting scolded by your mommy and daddy? Some sense of proportion." _Why the hell didn't you just go home while you still could?_ I let the smile fade. "Jillas is alive and well, by the way. No thanks to you. Even the soldiers you attacked at the granary survived. You haven't killed anyone yet. You can still go back." 

_Shame-anger-hate._ The negative emotions were so thick here, filling me up to the point where I wanted to belch, and making me angry with myself. 

"Back?" Kel laughed, almost hysterically. "Like this? How can I go back? How could I ever _want_ to go back? Back to having no magic? To being useless?" 

"Because you still love them. Your family." 

Kel scowled. "Not that much." 

I sighed. "Fine, then. Now, you've got a decision to make: you can fight me, or submit to me, or make like your boss did ten minutes ago and get the hell out of here. If you do, I won't bother to stop you." 

"I . . . Huraker-sama was supposed to . . ." 

I smirked. "I kicked her ass. And her partner's. No more talking." As I invoked the blades on the Ragud Mezegis, I twisted around on the astral and whacked him with my tail. He staggered forward a couple of steps and almost impaled himself on the fake Lance of Light. 

"Val, what the hell—" 

I teleported behind him and kicked him in the hip, driving him against one wall of the alley. His insect leg, not strong enough to hold against the force I was applying, bent the wrong way in two different places. "Huraker hasn't even started training you, has she? This is how a real Mazoku fights. Except that I'm going at barely one-twentieth of my real speed and strength, and only moving on one plane at a time. Are you even aware that you _have_ an astral body? You're a pathetic excuse for a Mazoku chimera, and I'm through feeling guilty about you getting dragged into this. Fight back, submit, or flee . . . or I'll just beat you to a pulp and _make_ you submit. I'd prefer not to, though. I've got better things to do with my time." 

He turned to speak to me, but I'd already teleported myself straight up, dropping down on him from above. My kick hit his shoulder, and the follow-up punch smashed into his ear, splitting flesh and sending him sprawling on top of his extra appendages. He raised his hand to touch, brought his fingers away slimed with blood . . . and his eyes widened in sudden fear. 

"You . . . you're _serious_!" he said, sounding accusing. 

"Did you think this was a game, you stupid brat?" I growled. Actually, I _wasn't_ fighting seriously. Not yet. If I had been, he'd have been lying there dead. " _Choose._ Every second I waste on you is one in which my mate only has that idiot Rashatt to guard his back. And if anything happens to him because of that, I'm going to beat you until you _liquify_ , and send you back to your parents in a jar. _Alive and conscious._ " 

I raised my weapon, and he scrambled backward, the insect legs growing from his back tangling in his original two feet and making it impossible for him to get up for a moment. 

"Is someone there?" called a familiar voice from the mouth of the alley. Kel made it to his feet and fled, bouncing off the speaker. "You—wait—" 

"Let him go, Zelgadis," I said, deactivating the Ragud Mezegis and slinging it across my back. "And I'm out of he—" 

I stopped. Someone had grabbed my clothes, down at around knee level. Hen-chan. 

"What?" I snapped. 

"Uncle Sorrel isn't breathing! Please, Val—" 

"What do you expect me to do about it?" I snapped. "'Resurrection' doesn't actually bring anyone back to life, you know! And I'm not a priest!" 

Hen-chan wasn't letting go. I snarled in exasperation and tore my leg from his grip. 

"Try mouth-to-mouth," I gritted out. "And press on his breastbone to force the heart to pump. There's a temple of Ragradia about three blocks that way." I pointed. "One of their healer-priests would be of more use to you than me. If they say there's nothing they can do, keep the body anyway, and I'll try something when I get back." 

I leaped straight up in the air before anyone else could grab me, and folded space around myself, extending my astral senses toward my mate. I could always find him that way. 

I popped out on a high ledge and was slapped in the face by a shocking cold wind. My reversion to dragon form was so quick it was almost subconscious. Scales and feathers were much warmer than skin. 

"How nice of you to join us," Rashatt said from down near my left hind foot. 

"I didn't do it for you," I growled. "Where are we?" There was an odd sort of churning darkness blanketing the astral and making it difficult to perceive anything on that plane. It was much, much thicker than the fog invoked by the spell on Gaav's torc, which just made perceptions attenuate more quickly over distance. But this . . . I wouldn't have been able to find them in it if it hadn't been for the mate-bond. 

"North," Gaav said, leaning against my other side. I think it was meant to look casual, but even if I couldn't feed off his emotions, I could still feel the tension in him. 

North of Gyria City . . . and in mountains. The Kataarts. Which meant Dragon's Peak, and the site of the entrance to the Claire Bible, where my mate had almost died. I clamped my jaw to keep from bugling my distress at the thought. 

"Even further north than that," Gaav said quietly, his voice almost snatched away by the wind. 

But north of that was . . . 

"How far are we from . . . him?" I asked softly. _The King in the North._ The shard of Shabranigdo that had touched off the Kouma War. 

"Not very. Closer than I've been in the thousand years since the last battle." Gaav stared out at the snow and barren rock. "I think you'd be able to see the fucking crater Ragradia and I left if you climbed over to the other side of this—" He jerked his thumb back at the mass of rock behind us. "Our target's out there. Somewhere. Fucked if I can tell exactly where, though—dear old Dad's throwing up too much astral interference. Pretty good strategy, really. Our missing idiot can hide in here until he heals up, then vanish, and we'll never find out where he went until he decides to let us know." 

"Well, he's part of you—it makes sense that he'd know a thing or two about strategy." I couldn't even see clearly enough, with the wind driving snow in our faces, to pick out any interesting details that might suggest where not-Zilstan had gone. "Are we just going to let him go?" 

Gaav shook his head. "He's too much of a loose cannon for us to leave him wandering around on his own. We're going to have to do this the hard way." 

"Ground and air search," Rashatt added, sounding sour. "And those piss-yellow distant cousins of yours are going to make it a pain." 

"I was trying to negotiate with them to allow passage of an army at one point, but the fuckers kept stalling," Gaav added. "This time, I don't intend to go so easy on them." He smirked, but I got the impression his heart wasn't in it. "We'll just scare them shitless and bull straight through. Elder Milgazia's a pretty reasonable sort, for a golden dragon. He'll make them get out of the way. And I doubt he wants a crazy Mazoku of the General-Priest level wandering around in his territory anyway." 

Golden dragons. Part of me reacted with violent revulsion to the idea we were going to have to deal with members of that race, but the more rational part locked it down. These weren't the _same_ golden dragons, after all. They'd been trapped inside the old Mazoku Barrier while my people were being slaughtered, unaware of what was going on and powerless to intervene. Not responsible, in other words. Like Filia. I'd handle them somehow. 

"So now, we just need an army of searchers." Mortal or Mazoku didn't really matter in this case, with the astral so heavily fogged. 

"I was thinking of borrowing one. _General_ Rashatt." Now my mate's smirk _was_ real. "Marry that fucking queen of yours if you have to, but get me those men—surely that's simple enough for even you to accomplish." 

"Yes, Gaav-sama." Rashatt still looked like he'd bitten into a lemon, though. 

"Let's go back, then—there's nothing we can accomplish here right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of part three. Just a little more to go. ;)


	28. Chapter 28

"Actually, the two of you saved my life, Val," Sorrel said from where he was propped on the pillows. "Or so I understand. Without that medallion, I would have been nothing more than a wet spot on the ground. And if you hadn't told everyone where to find this temple, and given some intelligent first-aid advice, my brain would have rotted before a healer could get to me." 

The House of Healing attached to the temple wasn't actually within the sacred precincts, thankfully, or I probably would have set off every alarm they had. They didn't have many seriously injured at the moment, so they'd put Sorrel in the largest room they had, but even so, it was crowded, and had been even before I'd gotten here. I mean, those rooms weren't designed to accommodate an entire mercenary troop, and I think they really did have everyone squeezed in there. Even Konalt was present, standing at the foot of the bed, his one eye missing nothing that was going on. When you added in the two extras—me and Zelgadis—I think we must have covered every square foot of floor space. 

"Still, we were the ones who got you involved in this," I said. 

Sorrel snorted. " _We_ were the ones who got us involved in this. We took your job, and the fox's job. We could have refused. Or I could have made Hendrick butt out when we spotted his ex-friend. You've just got protect-everything-itis. It's probably easy for someone with your power to fall into that mindset, but that doesn't mean everything is really your fault." 

"Maybe he's overcompensating for the time he tried to blow up the world," Zelgadis said. I scowled at him. He didn't seem to care. "Where's . . . your partner?" 

"A couple of different people let his real name drop during the fight at the palace last night, so there's no need to keep avoiding it," I said. "It's going to be all over the city soon enough, if it isn't already. And all over the Mazoku world." 

"Fair enough, but you didn't answer my question: where's Gaav?" 

Hen-chan's entire body jerked. 

"Figures," Erig said. "There was always . . . something about him." 

Foltig snorted. 

"He's with Rashatt, trying to borrow an army," I said. 

Zelgadis' eyes widened. " _Borrow_ an _army_?! And he thinks everyone's just going to let him get away with . . . with . . . with whatever he has planned?" 

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, for the love of Ceiphied . . . We're going to chase down the Mazoku who was masquerading as King Zilstan and make sure he doesn't cause any more damage than he has already—does that meet with your approval? Not that I give a damn, or that someone who used to work for a piece of Ruby-Eye has any right to judge us." 

"That's ancient history," the chimera gritted out. 

"Only for a human," I said, with a smirk. "And I never was one of those." 

"Why does a Dark Lord need an army to find another Mazoku?" Foltig was the one who asked, but I'm sure it was on several people's minds. Along with Zelgadis' history, I was sure, but unlike his cousin, Foltig had some tact. "I mean, can't he just . . . wiggle his eyebrows, or something, and know where to find anything or anyone he wants?" 

"It isn't quite that easy, but normally we wouldn't need to do things quite this way, no. It's just that not-Zilstan found the one place in the world, other than maybe under Valwin's hat, where even a Dark Lord can't easily detect him." 

"There's a place like that? If we'd known that when your boss was chasing Lina around—" 

"—you still wouldn't have visited it," I interrupted the chimera. "In the far north, beyond Dragon's Peak, where the Water Dragon King fought to her death during the Kouma War, there's a huge crater. And at the center of that crater, frozen eternally in ice but nevertheless awake and aware, is Lei Magnus—the first human in whom a shard of Shabranigdo fully resurrected. So the entire area is blanketed with the power of a really pissed-off chunk of Ruby-Eye. It pulls divinations off-course and covers the astral plane in darkness. And getting too close to the center is dangerous as hell. We're hoping that not-Zilstan hasn't gone in farther than was necessary to conceal himself from Gaav. If he's cozying up to the King in the North, we may just have to wait until he comes out on his own." 

"And you're going to take an army up there," Foltig said. 

I scowled. "The edges, outside the crater proper, are safe enough even for humans, and not-Zilstan is a chimera—he has a body that occupies space on the physical plane and can't just withdraw to the astral like a pure Mazoku. Which means he can be found by creatures that only perceive the physical." 

"Whoever finds him is still probably going to die," Zelgadis pointed out. 

I wanted to punch him, but I controlled myself with an immense effort. "Ruby-Eye's influence will be reducing our target's perceptions, too. If no one is stupid enough to try to confront him, they should get away clean. It's no worse than any other scouting job carried out against a superior force. We'll be giving out talismans that can detect not-Zilstan's power at short range, so that hopefully no one will trip any alarms or traps he might have left." 

" . . . We're coming with you." 

It took me a moment to recognize that as Konalt's voice. 

"Are you sure?" I asked, turning to face him. 

"Normally I don't like putting my people at unnecessary risk," the mercenary captain said, "but it looks like we're already involved in this mess. That means that, until it's over and done with, we could get pulled back in at any time. And _that_ means that I'd prefer to know what's going on, instead of being kept in the dark. The easiest way to do that is to help out." 

"The more the merrier, I suppose," I said. "You'll want to come back up to the palace with me, then. You as well, Zelgadis-san—I promised Pokota I would find you for him." 

"Then he's alright?" the chimera said. 

"The menagerie wasn't damaged, and we've convinced the queen to let him out. We didn't even have to play the Taforashia card. When I last saw him, he was stuffing his face in the eastern great hall and kind of half-listening to the preparations for our . . . reconnaissance in force. Now, if you two are coming, I've wasted enough time here." 

I couldn't teleport inside the room, though—there were too many people, and I might have ended up taking part of someone with me, which was only acceptable if I was doing it on purpose. So I pushed my way back through the mercenaries and out into the hallway. 

I was about to bend space when a stony hand gripped my elbow. 

"I've got a couple more questions for you," Zelgadis said. 

"You're going to draw down your account with us," I said, raising an eyebrow. 

"I figure I'm already in debt after asking the two of you to help Pokota . . . and anyway, while my cure may be the most important thing in the world as far as I'm concerned, it isn't the most immediate." A wry grimace. "Although it did take me a couple of decades to figure that out. Anyway. Why not send an army of lesser Mazoku out to look for this . . . individual?" 

"Because we don't have one, mostly." 

"I would have thought Gaav could produce all the little Mazoku he wanted." 

"Only at the cost of permanently reducing his own power. New Mazoku are created out of parts of other Mazoku, and that energy is never recovered." I wasn't about to tell an outsider about Gaav's current inability to throw spawn. "I think you can understand why he can't afford that right now. We can't afford to have Rashatt do it on his behalf, either." 

"Hm. The other thing . . . You keep on referring to the renegade Mazoku as 'not-Zilstan'. If you don't know his name, it makes me wonder exactly what else you don't know about him . . . and how much of it is important." 

I shook his head. "If he _had_ a name, we'd know it—Rashatt worked with him for years, after all." 

Zelgadis blinked. "That doesn't make sense, unless . . . do Mazoku have to earn their names or something? I don't know much about your—their—culture, although I suppose there is one." 

"I would describe it more as a pecking order than a culture, but no, there's no tradition of Mazoku earning their names. Normally they know them from the moment of their creation, but not-Zilstan isn't a normal Mazoku." 

"Then what is he?" 

I scowled, but my mate had already told me to give the information out freely. So I would, even if I didn't like it. "As far as we can tell, he's a chunk of power Phibrizzo hewed off Gaav during their confrontation, combined with some soul that's probably been wandering around those mountains for a thousand years or so. An accident, in other words. Even if Gaav had been inclined to name him, he never had the chance. And that was three questions, plus a couple of leading statements." 

Zelgadis half-smiled and gestured his understanding. I'd probably given him a fair amount to think about. 

Finally, I was free to teleport us up to the palace. 

I didn't expect to arrive there in the middle of an argument, though. 

"—won't lend you my troops, even for dear Rashatt's sake!" Queen Thalia brought both her fists down on the table. As though that was going to change anything. 

"I didn't fucking well _ask_ you to," Gaav rumbled. "We've got Zilstan's troops. That should be enough." 

"She has better scouts, though," Rashatt observed. 

"So? We'll just have to make do. We've done that enough fucking times over the years." 

"I still don't understand how you expect to get past the dragons." I'd only met King Olovis briefly, and he still reminded me of a rat. A shrewd-eyed, middle-aged rat wearing a golden circlet in his hair. 

"The dragons aren't stupid," I said. "They don't want another Kouma War either, and their Elder is . . . a reasonable person. Hopefully they'll behave intelligently and get out of the way when we explain why we're there. Worst case, we make an example of one or two of them. But I don't expect it's going to come to that." 

The humans had odd expressions on their faces. 

"And just how many of you could . . . 'make an example of' a golden dragon?" Olovis asked slowly. 

"Three—me, Val, and Rashatt." _And I'm tempted to make an example of_ you _,_ my mate's tone suggested he was thinking. 

"Zel and I could probably take one," added Pokota from where he was sitting on the table. "We wouldn't do it on a Mazoku's behalf, though. Not even a reformed Mazoku's. Hi, Zel." 

"You're alright?" the chimera asked. 

"Yeah." The plush prince rubbed his nose with one finger. "They just locked me up and treated me like a really stupid dog, they didn't beat me or anything. I mean, I wasn't really at the point yet where it seemed like it was worth trying to break the shock collar or anything like that. Thanks for asking, though—so far, only you and Jillas have bothered." 

Queen Thalia's guilt tasted more like pears and ginger this time. I would have enjoyed it more if Zelgadis hadn't chosen to aim an accusing look at me. I mean, what had _I_ done? I hadn't even been there when they'd let the stuffed idiot out of his cage! 

Gaav snorted. "Chimera, if you just came here to pick up your little friend, then take him and go. As for you, I take it you got tired of being left in the dark." He raised an eyebrow at Konalt. 

"Something like that," the mercenary admitted. 

"Fine, then. Pull up a chair—you too, Val—and we'll finish hashing this out." 

There was an open chair to my mate's left. Seated, I put my hand on his thigh under the table, and smirked as I caught his quick, amused glance. Konalt was on the other side of the table, beside a subdued-looking Rashatt. 

I was a little surprised when Zelgadis took the chair to my left . . . but only a little. He was probably just as interested as everyone else in finding out how it was going to end. 

Gaav produced a large map out of nowhere and unrolled it on the table. After a moment of fishing around, he produced a six-inch cube of black crystal, a jeweled dagger, and the skull of a griffon chick to weight the corners with, pinning the fourth one down with his elbow. 

"This is the area near the crater," he said. "The map's about a hundred years old, but I doubt the terrain's changed very much." Judging from the contour lines on the map, it was as rumpled as an unmade bed, with valleys and ridges everywhere. "I mean, it isn't the kind of place you'd build a fucking Brass Rackets court. The dragons claim it all, of course, but this is the area actually _used_ by the ones who live in Dragon's Peak." He tapped a large, roughly kidney-shaped area south-west of the crater that was shaded reddish-brown. "And there's a much smaller clan of dimos over here, but we don't have to worry about them." An oval-shaped chunk to the southeast. "Unfortunately, this—" His finger traced its way along a line that started at the southern edge of the map, passed straight through Dragon's Peak, and ended where the land began to rise toward the edge of the crater. "—is the only viable route in for a large group of humans that doesn't involve climbing, flying, or a lot of rock blasting. I was negotiating for access to it eighty years ago, when Phibby put a crimp in my plans. I'm not going to be as polite this time." 

I knew that nasty grin of his very well indeed. Milgazia and his people were not in for a good time. 

"Where was he hiding, when you found him?" my mate asked Rashatt. 

The lesser Mazoku frowned, brows knitting. "I think it would have been about here." He touched a spot right in the shadow of the crater's edge, not particularly near the route we were going to be taking into the area. 

"Shit. Figures. Hard to tell whether he would have gone back or not. Hard to tell anything about what the fuck he's doing or will do, when we know he hallucinates sometimes. But I'd bet he'll stay out of this area, at least." Gaav traced out a small circle on the edge of Dragon's Peak. 

"The entrance to the Claire Bible," Zelgadis said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder if the dragons ever cleared away the mess we made . . ." 

I snorted. "After arguing for ten years about whether they should just do the clean-up or try to track down the surviving culprits and have _you_ do it, maybe. Goldens are such self-righteous pricks." 

"Including Filia?" the chimera asked, eyeing me. 

"Oh, you have no idea." I left it at that. Let him waste his time trying to figure it out. Like the ignorant hatchling Filia had raised, who'd had no idea how her lack of battle-training might have gotten him killed. 

I felt a phantom touch on my shoulders and back—a wing thrown over me on the astral, for warmth and comfort, although Gaav gave no sign on the physical. He wasn't even looking at me . . . but I transferred my attention to the other plane for a moment so that I could nuzzle his jaw in thanks, ignoring the wyvern curled into a tight little ball not very far away. 

"We'll gather here," Gaav said, pointing to a relatively flat area on the far side of Dragon's Peak. "To speed things up and increase our reach, the Mazoku we do have will shift some troops to staging areas." More pointing. "Then we all spread out and hope we make contact before anything goes too badly wrong. Once we do find him, Val and I will take over." 

"And kill him?" Olovis asked. 

"Depends," my mate said with a shrug. "I can guarantee he won't be coming back here, though. Not in your lifetimes. Anyway, once we find him, we'll send Rashatt back with the troops, since they won't be much good to us at that point. After that, you probably won't ever see any of us again." 

Queen Thalia actually felt a pang of grief and looked sidelong at Rashatt when she said that, then jerked away when he turned to face her. 

"Look, I've told you it wouldn't work," Rashatt said. "I can't give you what you want. I can't father the heirs you need to produce, and I can't support you emotionally. I'm just not designed for that sh—stuff, and I'm not really smart enough to fake it." Terror, desperation, confusion, exhaustion . . . a melange of emotions, far more than most Mazoku gave off. I thought there might even be a hint of regret in there somewhere, like a faint minty aftertaste. 

It should have been funny, but somehow it wasn't. Instead, I felt a bit sad. For both of them. Rashatt because he would never understand what it was like to have a partner who loved and trusted him, and the queen because, even though I didn't _like_ her very much, it hurt to see anyone fighting such a quiet, desperate battle for the one she loved, especially when she knew she had no chance of winning. 

I felt Gaav's wing furl itself more tightly around my shoulders, and was once more glad that he was the only person here who could detect my emotions. 

"You have a loose end," Zelgadis said. "Kellelan." 

I shook my head. "He's an enemy now. The power he's gained went to his head, and I can't see any way to snap him out of it. He was willing to kill me, and Hen-chan and Sorrel. I suspect that if it came to it, his family wouldn't be safe from him now either. The best we can hope to do now is get him alone and force him to submit, and that's going to depend mostly on luck." The half-elf chimera probably wouldn't like being my minion very much, but I wasn't about to give him a choice. Oddly enough, I owed him that. 

I'd never liked loose ends. Now I was starting to hate them as much as I'd hated golden dragons. 

Gaav lifted his elbow off the map, allowing the corner he'd been pinning to curl inward. "Rashatt. You get those troops stocked with cold-weather gear and get them moving. Scouts, light infantry, archers, mages if there are any. Leave everyone else behind—we're going to be poking around in rough terrain, not defending a position or fighting pitched battles. Konalt, you do the same for your own men." 

"And where will you be?" the one-eyed mercenary asked. 

"Val and I will be in Dragon's Peak, getting things sorted out there. One way or another." My mate smirked. Zelgadis frowned. "What's the matter, chimera? You want to tag along?" 

A shrug. "I've been meaning to talk to Milgazia again. Although I'm not sure arriving with you will do me much good." 

"Fine. It isn't like you're going to make any difference either way." My mate pushed his chair back from the table and rose to his feet, gesturing Zelgadis to his side, then gave me an expectant look. 

I got up and took my place, and my mate folded space around us.


	29. Chapter 29

Dragon's Peak was . . . not what I had expected. My people had lived in the mountains too, but much higher up, using spells to warm the area we'd chosen and turn it into a comfortable home. When the spells had collapsed with the death of the Elders, our aerie had reverted to a bleak, uncomfortable land of ice and stone. 

Dragon's Peak, however, was warm enough during the summer that nothing of the sort was necessary, and we popped out of the teleport on a ridge above a vast alpine meadow dotted with flowers and daintily nibbling deer and mountain goats. Contented dragons soared above or basked in the sun on stone ledges. Only one of them seemed to notice us, a male golden who launched himself from his ledge to land on the ridge beside us. 

"Elder Milgazia," Gaav greeted him. 

"Maryuuoh," the golden returned. "This is certainly a surprise. I didn't expect to ever see you again." 

Gaav shrugged. "My brother should have checked the body. So should you, for that matter." 

Milgazia frowned, brow ridges knitting. "And you arrive in odd company. I recognize Zelgadis-san, but . . ." 

"I'm Pokota," the plush prince offered from his perch on Zelgadis' shoulder, and Milgazia gave him a glance before returning his gaze to me. 

Oh, why the hell not? "I give you greetings, Elder Milgazia. I am Val, last of the ancient dragons." Let's see what he would make of that. 

Milgazia blinked several times. "I'm not even certain which question I want to ask first." 

I smiled thinly. "I'll give you the short version, then. The rest of my clan was slaughtered by the clan of golden dragons that directly serves the Fire Dragon King. I would be dead as well if not for a Dark Lord's compassion." I laid my hand on Gaav's arm. "This is my mate, and I love and trust him absolutely." 

Gaav's eyebrows jumped. Milgazia made an odd noise. "Are you insane?" the golden asked. 

"Not at the moment." I made my reply as bland as possible. 

"I . . . see." 

"You don't think he's lying?" Zelgadis said. 

Milgazia shook his head. "It goes against all dragon law and custom to falsely claim someone as your mate. It simply isn't something we lie about. And as an Elder, I can sense something of how the two of them mesh together—they aren't trying to hide it. They are . . . truly mated." He sounded . . . less confused than perturbed. "An ancient dragon as the consort of the Chaos Dragon. Bizarre. It feels as though the universe is out of order." 

"You're wrong on one point," Gaav said. "Val isn't my consort—that implies that he's inferior to me. He and I are equal partners. But we didn't come here so that you could criticize our sleeping arrangements. Let's get down to business." 

"Then perhaps you could tell me why you are here." 

"To negotiate for the use of the pass." 

Milgazia's tail lashed, just once. "Again?" 

"This time I'm not taking no for an answer," Gaav said. "If you still won't let us through when we've explained why, I'll clear you out of the way. It isn't about the King in the North this time—there's a more immediate threat." 

"Oh?" 

"We have a stray General-class Mazoku wandering around," I explained. "A stray, _insane_ General-class Mazoku who's using the aura of the King in the North to conceal himself. Since he's also a human chimera, we should be able to find him with a ground search. We have a bunch of humans at our disposal, but we need to get them up here." 

"Hmm." The golden Elder's brow ridges knit again. "Given the stated alternative, I have little choice but to give you permission to pass through our lands, although I would be happier if it weren't necessary. Val-san, may I speak to you privately for a moment?" 

Zelgadis scowled, but didn't say anything. I guess he really didn't like being ignored. 

I shrugged. "If you like." 

"Follow me, then." The golden launched himself with a spring of his hindquarters and a sharp downward flap, creating eddies of wind that made Zelgadis and Pokota shield their eyes to keep the dust out, although the air around Gaav and me was stilled by my mate's power. 

"I'll be back in a minute," I said, and moved a short distance away so that I had enough space to resume my natural form. There was just enough space for me to land beside Milgazia on the ledge—I don't think he'd taken into consideration the fact that an average ancient dragon is about twenty feet longer than an average golden, with proportionately greater bulk and wingspan. "What do you want, golden?" I asked in Draconic. 

"To have a better look at you when you were a little further from Maryuuoh," came the response. "I wasn't sure of my perceptions before, and now that I am, I am once again unsure of how I want to phrase my questions. You are still a dragon, but the power you wield . . ." 

"Is more than sufficient to contend one-on-one with Xellos," I said. "Which is the point. I chose Gaav, and I chose this. I don't ever again want to be placed in the position of being unable to defend the ones I love, whether through lack of knowledge or lack of strength. And I don't give a damn where I get my power from. Dragon Gods, Dark Lords, or the Sea of Chaos itself . . . it's all one, as far as I'm concerned." 

"Your clan might have disagreed." 

"My clan were fools," I snapped. "I don't consider myself bound to follow their wishes. If they'd been a little less intent on their pacifism and their acceptance of Ceiphied's will, I might not be the only living example of my species. Is there a point to this?" 

"You trust Maryuuoh." 

I growled in exasperation. "I said so, didn't I? Let me guess—you ran into him during the Kouma War. He's changed a lot since then. Hell, he's changed a fair amount even since I met him. Lumping him in with the other Mazoku at this point is stupid. He doesn't support their agenda anymore. He values this world and he wants it to survive." 

"There are those who would say he is still evil." 

"There are those who would say greater dragons don't exist, but that doesn't mean I have to believe them." Deliberately, I clawed at the rock of the ledge, digging deep furrows in it. "Evil . . . what the fuck is evil, anyway? I'd say it's evil to turn away when you have the power to help someone. My clan worshipped Valwin. I was named for him. And when they needed him, needed help from someone, _anyone_ , he couldn't be bothered to lift a single talon, to rescue a single egg. If the Dragon Gods are evil, does that make the Mazoku good? At least Gaav isn't a hypocrite." 

"You're bitter." 

"I think I've earned the right to be. And I'm also getting pretty pissed off at you and your little probes. I've known Gaav for eight hundred years. No matter how much you poke and prod, you aren't going to get me to abandon my mate." 

Milgazia turned his head, looking away from me. "I apologize. You may not know, as you must have been young when your clan was destroyed, but occasionally a dragon will . . . repent of the mate they have chosen. I needed to be certain you weren't supporting him only out of duty. But it's clear to me now that your feelings are genuine, your love and your trust freely given. And I agree with you that he is no longer the creature I saw fight Ragradia to the death a millennium and more ago. And so I will trust him too, to the extent that my position permits." 

I didn't know what to say to that, so I contented myself with a single, sharp nod. 

There was a pause, then Milgazia said, "It would be best if you launched first, I think, so that I don't get caught in your turbulence. I had forgotten just how much larger than us your people are." 

"Were, you mean." I spread my wings and gathered myself for the leap. 

"Are. While you remain, your race isn't dead yet." 

I snorted softly and launched. It was true that the ancient dragons wouldn't die out until I died too, but that just meant my race was in limbo, not truly dead but unable to live. There could be no renewal from only one survivor—no eggs, no hatchlings. I could clone myself, of course. I could clone myself a million times. But there still wouldn't be any eggs. 

I landed beside Gaav and quickly returned to my humanoid form to make room for Milgazia . . . and then had to jump back as a large lump of half-frozen mud dropped down from on high. Part of it shattered, part of it splattered, and it made a mess a good five feet in diameter, splattering the edge of Zelgadis' cloak. I looked up, but it wasn't clear which of the dragons flying nearby had dropped it. 

"Geez, they could at least _pretend_ we're welcome," Pokota said. 

"Be glad it was just mud and not fewmets," I told him. 

"They sense Mazoku, and they don't understand the situation," Milgazia said. Tilting back his head, he thundered, in Draconic, " _You young punks! This is Elders' business! Stay out of it!_ " 

"We're done with you for now, so it's probably better if we clear out," my mate said. "Coming or staying, chimera?" 

"I was hoping I could persuade Milgazia-san to give me a peek at the Claire Bible," Zelgadis said, which wasn't quite an answer. "Assuming you've been able to excavate down to the entrance again." 

"We have, but you know very well that we don't open it to mortals unless there is some compelling reason." 

"A reason like Xellos threatening to turn you all into Dragon Cuisine?" Zelgadis muttered, although softly enough that I don't think Milgazia heard him. 

Pokota made a frustrated noise. " _How_ many times has Zelgadis helped save the world now? Five? _Six?_ Isn't the fact that we're still here partly because of him a good enough reason?" 

Milgazia looked unhappy. "The clan voted to tighten our restrictions . . . but I suppose I can claim it was included in the threats. With apologies for turning you into a scapegoat, Maryuuoh." And he actually offered my mate a little half-bow. 

Gaav waved it off into the realm of the unimportant. "Half of your clan probably things I eat roast hatchlings for breakfast with a side of scrambled dragon eggs, so I doubt it'll make them think much worse of me. See you in a couple of weeks, chimera." 

"A couple of _w—!_ " Zelgadis' words were cut off by our teleport. 

"I probably should go back to check on him at some point," I said when we popped back out in a small courtyard at the back of the Dilsan royal palace, startling a maid who was hanging sheets out to dry. "He might not find a dragon aerie all that comfortable, no matter how hospitable the inhabitants are." 

Gaav snorted. "You can if you like, but I expect that Milgazia can find him a cave and grill him a mountain goat or two. He'll be fine." 

"But grumpy," I pointed out. 

"He's _always_ grumpy. Bland as hell. What the fuck did you say to that yellow idiot, anyway? The last couple of times we ran into each other, he was a lot less polite." 

"I just told him over and over again that you were my mate and I trusted you, until he finally got it through that thick head of his." 

"Not a job I would have wished on you, little dragon. I'm surprised it worked." 

I'm not sure what response I would have made to that, if any, because just then, Rashatt appeared with a pop. "I've got the troops assembled, Gaav-sama. If you want to inspect them . . ." 

My mate nodded. "Lead the way." 

The outer wall of the palace enclosed a lot of space, including a field large enough for more than a thousand humans to draw themselves up in neat ranks and files. Blocks of ten men by ten men, arranged in three rows and four columns, with their officers out front. 

How many times had Gaav and I done this together? I wondered as Rashatt signaled one of the humans and the man's voice rang out, calling his fellows to attention. Enough that I could make decent guesses, as we began to walk the ranks, at which cohort was the most disciplined, and which would be the best in an actual fight. Not that we wanted them to _get_ in an actual fight, but still . . . It was also easy to tell which ones had experience and which were primarily parade soldiers. The ones that had never fought were thin-lipped and frightened; the ones who had endured many battles were cynical and full of black humour, spread out to hide a deep-down dread. 

When we finished walking up and down and mounted the low platform at the front, Rashatt was the one who gave a speech while Gaav and I stood behind him and pretended to listen. About midway through, a movement in a window above the drill field caught my eye. Fear and sorrow and longing . . . Queen Thalia? I hoped she didn't pull something stupid like disguising herself as a soldier so that she could follow Rashatt. I doubted she had the training to keep herself in one piece. 

Konalt and his small troop were off to one side, watching and listening. Compared to the Dilsan army cohorts, their group looked ragged and ill-equipped, but they were the ones I wanted at my back if it came to a real fight. They probably had more experience than all the army cohorts put together. 

Rashatt rattled on for a while before dismissing the rank-and-file and calling the officers up to join us. Most of them didn't look very happy. 

"I still can't believe that King Zilstan was replaced by a Mazoku impostor," one of them said, an older man with dark, weathered skin and a hooked nose. "And bringing in outsiders to hunt him down . . . I'm sorry, sir, but it isn't right." 

"If the man who taught me everything I know is an outsider, then I'm one too," Rashatt snapped. 

"Yes, sir, but you _earned_ your place. This man . . ." 

Rashatt opened his mouth to speak again, but Gaav's hand fell to his shoulder, silencing him. 

"I can kick your ass easily enough, but we don't have time for that right now," my mate said to the hook-nosed man. "And I didn't just come and stick my nose into this to piss you off. In a sense, I'm responsible for the whole mess—" He scowled and looked down. I doubt the humans could tell that his embarrassed look was more practiced than genuine. "—so I'm going to be the one that cleans it up. Because I'm fucked if I'm going to leave loose ends just lying around." 

"And you expect us to just trust you?" 

"I _expect_ you to follow your fucking orders. No more, no less. If you prefer, you can stay here cooling your heels until they figure out who the real Zilstan's heir is. I'm told they think they should have that straightened out in a couple of months." 

"You're Mazoku." That wasn't the hook-nosed man. In fact, I couldn't tell who that remark had come from. 

"So is Rashatt," Gaav pointed out. "And you trust him." 

"They're not what you think they are," I added. "Even the worst of the Mazoku have never hated humans, not really. In fact, humanity is vital to their survival." Although I wasn't going to elaborate on that if I could help it. I doubted the soldiers would appreciate knowing that they were the Mazoku equivalent of cattle. 

"Besides," Gaav added, "I'm not welcome among my own kind anymore—haven't been since the Kouma War. So I've pretty much thrown my lot in with you mortals. Got a problem with that?" 

His eyes raked over the assembled officers. Several of them swallowed, giving off a tang of nervousness. 

"No," hook-nose said. "Sir," he added. 

"Fine," my mate said. "We march as soon as the baggage train is ready, if it isn't yet. This is going to be unpleasant, but probably not lethal for any of you. Val and I will be the ones taking the real risks." 

"Sir," hook-nose repeated. He looked relieved. 

I wished I felt the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By my calculations, Zelgadis has indeed helped save the world six times—twice in the first series, and once during each of NEXT, TRY, Revolution, and Evolution-R. And he doesn't get nearly enough credit for it, poor stony bastard.


	30. Chapter 30

Everyone was dead-dog tired and chilled to the bone by the time we reached the location Gaav had picked out to be our base encampment. Even me, because my mate had insisted we march alongside the soldiers instead of just rejoining them whenever they set up camp—partly because he wanted to be there to deal with any problems along the way, and partly for the psychological effect a demonstration of solidarity would have. He was right, I knew, but the conditions still sucked. 

At least we didn't have to participate in pitching the camp. That was for the soldiers to do, struggling with the winter-weight felt tents while Gaav and I watched from a higher vantage point, just in case not-Zilstan found us and decided to attack. 

"I'm already tired of this," I said as I watched humans scurry around. My wings were out and wrapped around me to cut the wind—much more efficient than a fabric cape. "My thigh muscles feel like someone's taken a hot iron to them, and we haven't had any privacy since we left Gyria City." 

Gaav's arm settled around my shoulders. "When this is over, let's make a nice quiet pocket in the astral for just the two of us, and not come out for a couple of months." 

"That sounds great," I admitted, leaning against his side. "Just the two of us . . ." 

"Mmm. I only hope we don't get tired of each other's company." 

I snorted. "In two months? That should be a blink of the eye for a dragon or a Mazoku. You've been spending too much time with humans. Well, we both have, I guess." 

"Either that, or this fucking body is influencing my thinking again. Well, it isn't like I can do much about that." 

"Is there any sign that what Ragradia did to you back then is fading at all?" 

He shook his head. "I doubt it ever will. For someone who had no idea what the fuck she was casting, she did a nice job of putting it together. And . . ." 

"What?" 

"I think I'm a bit worried about what would happen if it suddenly let go. If I'd go back to being . . . what I was, instinctively brown-nosing to Ruby-Eye. I think I've grown beyond that, but I don't _know_." 

"I do," I said firmly. "You're my mate, after all, and that's a spirit bond—it taps into the real you, the part of you that used to be . . . that. If you forget what you've chosen to be, I'll remember _for_ you." 

"Little dragon . . ." 

"I would trust you to do the same for me, if it ever became an issue," I added, looking up at him. His expression was . . . hell, I don't know. A mixture of stuff. Pleased. Surprised. Affectionate. And still a bit worried. 

I kissed him. It seemed like the right thing to do, and it was obvious from the way he responded that he didn't mind. 

_I'm going to soundproof our tent tonight._ The thought flashed through my head even though I knew he'd never let me do it. All part of the army-commander thing. 

Despite all the training he'd given me, I would never have the instincts of a good general officer. We both knew that. I was better as a lone warrior, or at most as the leader of a small group bound to me by personal loyalty. I wasn't good at looking responsible, and you had to be able to do that to run a large force well. So let Rashatt do the officer crap, since it was one of the few things he had a talent for. 

Right on cue, we heard a thunderous shout from below. "You fucking asshole! I told you to put that over _there_!" 

"But sir—" 

A soldier flew a short distance through the air, bounced once, and landed on the ground in a heap with the wind clearly knocked out of him. 

"Don't argue with me over trivial crap," Rashatt growled, then turned toward another group of men, his mood sour out of all proportion to the offense. Really, I didn't know what had gotten into him lately. He'd been irritable and easily angered ever since our march had begun. 

"I'd better get down there before he kills someone," Gaav said reluctantly. "Check the area from the air for me." 

"I will." 

I could have teleported up and hovered. Instead, I chose to take my true form and launch from the little rise we'd been standing on, making a low pass over the camp in the process. Many of the humans stared up and a couple of them fell over backwards—they'd seen dragons in the distance as we passed through the territory of Milgazia's people, but not so . . . up close and personal. 

Gaav didn't look up, but the wind carried the sound of his laughter to me. Which had kind of been the point. 

I gained height rapidly, until I was up high enough that it shouldn't be possible for someone on the ground to tell I wasn't just a random black dragon. Visibility through the astral was low, but I still tucked my power closely around myself, as insurance. 

The northern mountains spread themselves out around me in a rumple of grey and green and brown, accented here and there with white snowcaps or the still blue of a lake. The wall of the crater was to my left. Even from this far up, I couldn't tell it was curved. It was just too big. 

The ground inside the crater was glassy, fused rock dusted with snow. Even in this warmest season of the year, nothing grew there. On the astral, it was filled with a dark ground fog of negative energy. I didn't like the feel of it. It reminded me of Phibrizzo more than it did of my mate—evidence, perhaps, of how much the Chaos Dragon had changed since that last battle. 

There was something else there too, a faint hint of starlight hidden in the dark: a last remnant of Ragradia's power. 

"What would you think if you could see him now?" I murmured, letting the wind tear the words away. Gaav seemed to think the Water Dragon King hadn't known what her binding would do to him, over time. I . . . preferred to reserve judgement, since I doubted that he'd been able to read her mind, and Ragradia's temperament had supposedly been as variable as the element she'd ruled. 

There was no convenient aerially visible evidence that there was anyone in the area except us, no rising smoke or brightly coloured tents, so I settled for confirming that the terrain generally matched the aging maps in Gaav's possession, then did a vertical loop in the air and headed back for the army camp. 

I was careful not to fly over even the edge of the crater. The King in the North didn't particularly like being an icicle, and he'd been exerting his powers to call for help for a millennium, latching on to any Mazoku who came in range. The weaker ones were pulled straight to him, and even the stronger ones often had their judgement clouded. And while I might not be a true Mazoku, I had enough dark energy in my system that I might be at risk. 

They had a lot more tents up by the time I landed on the rise just above the camp. Changing back to my human form, although I kept my wings out and wrapped around myself to buffer the wind, I headed for the tent reserved for Gaav and myself—the camp layout had been the same at every stop for the past two weeks, or as much so as terrain allowed, so it was easy enough to find. 

Many of the soldiers stared at me as I walked past. A few flinched away. They'd all known I was a dragon, but I guess it hadn't registered for some of them until I'd transformed in front of them. 

Konalt's tent was two down from ours, on the far side of Rashatt's. The one-eyed mercenary captain was standing just outside, discussing something with Daveed, while, not far away, Hen-chan sat on a folding camp stool, doing a basic astral shamanism exercise. 

The young mage scrambled to his feet as I approached. "Val-san! Your dragon form is really cool! I think I've just about got Blam Blazer down, and, um, have you ever heard of a spell called Rakla Net?" 

My eyebrows rose. "For capturing things on the astral? I've heard of it, yes, but I never bothered to learn the Chaos Words. Have you tried asking Zelgadis or Pokota?" The chimera and the stuffed prince had rejoined us on our way through Dragon's Peak, but so far I hadn't seen much of either of them. 

"Pokota-san hadn't heard of it, and it didn't work when Zelgadis-san tried to test-cast it, so he figured he'd memorized it wrong." 

"Gaav might know—I can ask him, if you'd like. You do realize that it's only for capturing small things, the kind of lesser Mazoku that need to possess something to manifest in the physical plane." 

Hen-chan swallowed. "I figure that if I stack it with enough amplification spells, I can . . . make it do what I need it to do." 

"Capture Kel, you mean," I said, and snorted when his eyes widened. "Did you think I was born yesterday? You're almost painfully transparent. And once you've got him, what are you going to do with him? Sit on his chest and yell 'LOVE AND PEACE!' in his face until he repents of everything he's done? Do you really think that would work?" 

The young mage scowled. "I have to do _something_." 

I showed him what a scowl really was. "Fine. I can't stop you. One piece of advice, though: Rakla Net won't hold him. It only works on pure astral beings, not chimeras. You'd be better off learning Shadow Snap. He knows how to counter it, but it should buy you a few seconds to do . . . something." 

Hen-chan blinked. "Thanks, Val-san." 

"Don't mention it." I just wished I knew whether my advice made his chances of surviving his stupidity better or worse. 

I ducked into our tent without being interrupted again, and let my eyes adjust to the dimmer light. Thanks to Jillas, everything was arranged the same way as always, with our bedding laid out at the back and the "conference area", with its table and dozen folding stools, at the front. There was a brazier in the middle, below the open skylight, with the wood already burning down to cherry-red coals. The fox was just arranging his own bedding, his tails poking out from under a curtain hanging to my left, which sectioned off a small part of the tent and gave us all an illusion of privacy. 

Gaav was standing beside the brazier with his hands stuffed into his pockets, scowling at nothing, although his expression thawed a bit when he saw me. "Val. Nothing of interest, I gather." 

I shook my head. "Just rocks and vegetation, mostly." I hesitated, then added, "You don't look very happy." 

"I suppose I don't. Rashatt seems to be having some kind of fucking existential crisis. I didn't think I'd made him smart enough to even spell 'existential', but there you have it. And we don't have time for that kind of shit right now, and I've got no idea how to snap him out of it. Plus, the chimera and his fuzzball are avoiding me for some reason, and I don't like that at all. Sometimes I think I'd rather have to figure out how to storm a fortress using a children's choir and a three-legged donkey than do any of this personnel shit." 

"I'll deal with Zelgadis," I said. "If necessary, I'll ambush him. Unlike the commander himself, the commander's lover is allowed to sneak around the camp. In fact, it's just about a requirement that I find some way to make an ass of myself." 

Gaav snorted, but he was smiling. "Thank you, little dragon. That'll be one less thing for me to worry about. Hey, you! Fox!" 

Jillas pulled his head out from behind the curtain. "Yes, Gaav-sama?" 

"Are you almost done with whatever the fuck you're doing there?" 

"There's nothing that can't wait, Gaav-sama." 

"Good. Then take yourself outside and make sure we're not interrupted for at least half an hour." 

"Yes, Gaav-sama!" 

"Are you sure you want to do this with the entire camp listening in?" I was already moving closer to him, though. 

He chuckled as he opened the front of his coat. "I have no problems with making them jealous. And I need the stress relief." 

"Is that all I am to you? Stress relief?" 

His expression went serious as he said, "You're the most important thing in my world, little dragon, and don't you ever forget it. But you should be thinking about better things to do with your mouth about now," and his expression was back to that familiar grin. 

I returned a smirk. "Better things? Like this, maybe?" I leaned up and kissed him. "Or this?" I nibbled a trail down the side of his neck. "Or maybe . . . this?" I nuzzled my way down his chest and bit gently at a nipple through his shirt (still that same damned badly mended shirt with its secret message), causing him to tense. 

"Fucking tease." 

"That's kind of the idea, isn't it?" 

"Only for crazy dragons who love playing with fire." 

"Or with arrogant Mazoku." 

"Hmm. Maybe I should show you just how arrogant I can be." 

He grinned widely as he grabbed at me with his power, lifting me up off the ground, and then, with his hands, slowly began to strip me of my clothes while I hung there, helpless. Shirt first, then boots, trousers, everything except my headband. I twisted against the invisible bonds, fighting him . . . but not with everything that was in me. If I'd raised my own power, I might have been able to break loose, at the cost of wasting my strength and his. But that wasn't what I wanted, either. 

And so I hung there, helpless, naked, and on display, as he circled me slowly. He ran a finger slowly down my spine, making me shiver and bite my lip—my mouth was one of the few things I could still move. Light touches brushed against my scars, as though he was counting or confirming them, making sure once more that he'd gotten each one back in its proper place when he'd restored my body to its adult form. 

He circled back into my field of view and stopped in front of me, not touching, just looking at me, at my spread legs and painfully hard cock that twitched under his observation. 

"Still think teasing me is a good idea?" he asked, that grin never wavering. 

"Smartest thing I ever did." 

He laughed, and I felt a long shudder of desire run through me, because just then he looked . . . very much himself, strong and proud and uninhibited. An amazing, primal being. And he was all mine. Or, right now, I was all his. It didn't matter. For mated dragons, those are the same thing anyway. 

The massive bulge showing at his crotch proved that he was enjoying this as much as I was . . . and it must have been getting uncomfortable, because he undid his belt buckle and a series of buttons to let himself out. Slowly, putting on a show and watching me twitch as I reacted to every movement. 

Once he'd gotten his clothing out of the way, he stepped in closer to me and guided the head of his cock into place with one hand. Then he shifted his grip to my hips and pulled me down, and I trilled a mating cry as I felt the stretch and burn of his erection pressing into my unprepared body. I was vaguely thankful that he'd at least slicked himself . . . and then the head of his cock pushed its way past my prostate, and holding a thought like that together became too much effort. 

The grip of his power on my limbs loosened as he began to plow into me with long, rhythmic thrusts, and I wrapped my legs around his body and curled myself up so that I could wrap my arms around his neck and sink my fingers into the thick fall of his hair. He made a soft rumbling noise when they brushed the nape of his neck—I wouldn't have dared try for a real hold there, but this gentlest of touches was my right—and created delicate tendrils from his power, slipping them between us. When he wanted to, he could make me feel like I was being licked in the most intimate places by a dozen hot, narrow, slick miniature dragon tongues, and right now it was clear that he wanted to. Near the base of my cock first, and over my balls, then slowly up the shaft and over the head until one of them started probing at the slit at the tip . . . and feeling a hot, wet tongue in there was just too much for me. I threw my head back and roared so loudly it was probably lucky I didn't bring the tent down on our heads as I splattered his chest and belly with my seed. And just as I was starting to come down from that, I felt him give one last hard thrust and then begin to fill me up. 

I stayed where I was, limp and supported half by his power and half by the sheer strength of his arms, for quite a while after that, letting my body leach the power from his seed while I tried to remember how to breathe normally again. I felt wrung out, but also very content. And kind of sleepy. 

"Are you all right, little dragon?" my mate asked, sounding amused. 

"Mmm. I think the ground and the sky just inverted on me," I replied in Draconic, unable to dredge up an equivalent expression in Common—for some reason, "You just blew my mind" didn't . . . come to mind. 

He chuckled. "Guess I tired you out." 

"Gloriously." I offered him a smile that probably looked kind of goofy. 

"Let's get you to bed," he said, carefully disengaging our bodies and cleaning us with a twitch of his power, then shifting his grip on me to a princess carry, which would have been embarrassing if I'd felt a little less limp. "Tomorrow is going to be a long day." 

"Mmm." I let him carry me over to the bed, really just some blankets spread over a thick cave bear hide that kept the chill from coming up through the ground to us, and lay me down. "You ever going to get rid of that stupid shirt?" I asked, tongue loosened by the sudden exhaustion. 

"Like hell! It's my favourite." 

"Crazy Mazoku," I muttered, and drifted off into nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Val would not get along with Vash the Stampede. ;P


	31. Chapter 31

_Dark. Everything is dark, but roiling with movement. Is this the astral plane? I've never seen it so clearly before._

_I look around for Gaav, but he isn't here. Still, I can feel the mate-bond solidly anchored to my spirit, so I know he's fine, our separation a temporary thing._

_There_ is _someone here, though, a sense of a presence, but drawn in harder than anything I've ever encountered before. I can tell it's there—just—but not who or even what it is._

_Checking it out would be more interesting than just sitting here and waiting for something to happen, and likely safer, too. I mean, it's pretty hard to hide an adult dragon in his natural form, whether on the astral or on the physical, so the best way for me to deal with a potential danger is to attack it head-on before it can sneak up on me. And so I stalk toward the sense of . . . creature, dipping down into deeper layers of the astral as I go._

_The fabric of the astral makes eerie, peculiar noises. That's why I don't recognize one particular soft, underlying sound as the whine of a fellow dragon in distress. Not until I'm almost on top of him, anyway._

_The creature awkwardly curled into a tiny knot in a deep pocket of the astral is a mess. The scars marring his hide are worse than my own, one wing little more than tatters of feathers and skin dangling from bony struts. He's bitten through his flesh in an attempt to muffle the abandoned-hatchling keen that's still forcing its way out of him. We're about of a size, I think, and while it's difficult to tell what colour he is in this lightless environment, only an ancient dragon would have those feather-like scales._

_A jolt runs through me the moment I realize that. Have I at last found another survivor, hidden away in this place?_

_I shake my head, as much to clear it as in negation, because I know I'm not rational about this. Something isn't right. It's difficult to tell what, though, with him balled up that way, head half-hidden by wing and talon . . ._

_Head. Something about the shape of his head. Too long, too narrow, too . . . something. What the hell am I seeing?_

_If I leave him like this I won't learn anything, that's for sure. Still, it's my tail I use to prod him gently, rather than some more vital appendage._

_"Are you alright?" An innocuous-enough question, even in Draconic. I hope._

_No reaction._

_"Hey!" I try, a little more loudly. "I can't do anything to help you if you don't tell me what's wrong!"_

_Movement. Slow, cautious. He lifts one talon away from his face, and I suck in a breath. Scarred to the bone, but he somehow managed to keep the eye, a golden gem surrounded by ruin._

_"Help me? You?" he asks in a harsh rasp of a voice, then laughs._

_I narrow my eyes. "We're kin, aren't we?"_

_"Kin." He tests the word, as though it's one he's never spoken before._

_"We have to be. Only one kind of dragon has feathers."_

_His laugh is a horrible sound. "You think I'm clan with you? Don't give me that shit. Or haven't you recognized me yet, O Valgaav-sama?"_

_He raises his head, and the eye on the fully-fleshed side is not yellow. His profile is hard and serpentine, like Gaav's heads, although there are patches of feather-scales here and there that soften the shape._

_I recognize him now, of course. There's no way that I couldn't._

_"Do you really think I'm going to let you 'help' me?" not-Zilstan asks. "My life may be shitty, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for oblivion. If you come after me, I'm going to fight you every step of the fucking way!"_

_I growl. It seems to take him by surprise. "We don't want to hurt you, you thickhead! We want you to work with us!"_

_"I'll grant you this, you can certainly spin a good line of bullshit."_

_I'm so exasperated now that I snap at him, biting air mere inches from his face. "The Chaos Dragon has an opening for a Priest, or hadn't that crossed your mind?"_

_Not-Zilstan snorts. "Funny, I thought that was_ your _title. Or are you just his fucking catamite? Isn't that all you ever wanted out of life?" He has to use the human word for "catamite"—there isn't one in Draconic._

_"Are you_ trying _to make me angry?"_

_"There's no way I could possibly make you angry enough to make up for what you did to me. And if you're not killing me, I'm going back to sleep."_

_I blink as he coils his head back under the shredded remains of his wing. What_ I've _done to him? I've only really interacted with him the once . . . Does he really resent the fact that he isn't my mate that much?_

I drifted back up out of sleep into the darkness of the tent, with Gaav's body warm against my back and the rasp of his snoring in my ears. 

Why the hell had I dreamed that garbage? It filled me with disquiet. Especially the memory of that moment when I'd thought I truly had found another ancient dragon. Damn, but that had . . . I hadn't realized at the time just how much that had messed with my head. I'd repressed both the momentary warm feeling of belonging and the crash that had almost instantly followed, because I'd had more important things to deal with. 

I was a warrior, a weapon. That was what I had chosen to make of myself, but there was no room among my clan for someone following that path. Even if I found a lost enclave of ancient dragons at tea-time next Valwinsday, they wouldn't accept me after they found out what I'd become. 

But I'd known from the first that there would never be a chance of going back. Why was it bothering me now? When I was already back where I belonged? 

_This is just so damnably stupid . . ._ I wriggled out of Gaav's arms—not as easy as it sounded, since my mate got very grabby in his sleep. Most of the time, I just waited until he woke up, but right now, I badly needed to clear my head, and I thought a walk might do the trick. Fortunately, I remembered to conjure myself a fresh set of clothes before raising the tent flap. Nudity isn't a big deal among most dragons, and Mazoku barely even have the concept, so it does slip my mind sometimes. 

Outside, the false dawn was as red as Gaav's hair. Few people were stirring except the cooks, bent over their fires working on breakfast, and the sentries, who paced the edges of the camp, looking cold and irritable. All of them ignored me as I walked up and down the rows of tents. 

"Valgaav-san," a voice said suddenly, and I turned. Fortunately, I'd already recognized him by sound, because his features, shadowed by his hood in the predawn dimness, were indistinguishable. 

"Zelgadis-san. Was there something you wanted?" 

The chimera nodded. "I wasn't sure . . . but in the end, I decided it would be wrong not to tell you." 

"This sounds serious." 

"It is. Come inside." He gestured at the tent behind him. 

It turned out to be a storage tent, although there was a bedroll set out just inside, which I assumed belonged to the chimera, and a very dim light spell hovering just below the ridgepole. Otherwise, it mostly seemed to be full of bags of grain for the pack mules who had hauled most of the baggage up into the mountains for us. Pokota was asleep on top of a grain bag, covered with what looked like a hand towel. 

The bags made adequate chairs as well, I discovered as I settled myself on one. Zelgadis remained standing, and I could sense his nervousness. At least he'd pushed his hood back, though, so I could see his face now. 

"I met Auntie Aqua while I was in the Claire Bible's dimension," he said. 

It took me a moment to place the name. "The remnant of Ragradia? I thought she'd been destroyed." 

Zelgadis shrugged. "She appears to be just as resilient as your boyfriend." 

A pause. "So what does that have to do with me?" I asked, trying to hurry him along. 

The chimera grimaced. "Well, she started by asking why I'd been questioning the Claire Bible about time reversal spells and such. When I told her what Gaav had said about a possible cure, she started cross-examining me about him. Asking how I'd managed to engage him in a civil conversation. Inevitably, you came up." Another pause. "She wants to meet you." 

"Did she tell Milgazia that?" 

"I don't know, and I'm not sure it matters, anyway. She gave me this. She said you'd know what to do with it if you were any kind of dragon at all—her words, not mine." 

"This", as he held it out to me, looked like a small sphere of water. And I don't mean a small spherical container of water, I mean a raw blob of liquid that was somehow holding itself together between the chimera's fingers, although it deformed visibly with any tiny motion of his hand. 

I took it from him carefully. It was cool, but not wet. As though someone had used a variation of a walk-on-water spell to vastly increase the surface tension. Narrowing my eyes, I shifted my attention to the astral plane . . . and swore in Draconic, because on that side, the damned thing looked more like liquid light than water. 

"Mhah?" Pokota mumbled, opening his eyes. 

"Sorry," Zelgadis said. "Go back to sleep." 

The plushie prince sat up, shaking his head. "Nuh-uh! You gave him that thing, didn't you? I want to know what it is." 

"It's a _vramekh_ , I think," I said, using the Draconic word because I knew no other. "A type of divine relic—my clan had one from Valwin, for all the good it did them. Activated, it can be used to speak to the god to which it belongs." 

"So Valwin ignored your clan's pleas for help," Zelgadis said. "Directly." 

I shook my head. "I don't know. I wasn't at the temple when the goldens came. For all I know, they may have refused to invoke the _vramekh_ —either on general principles, or because it's a single-use item." 

"But you know how to use it." 

I smiled thinly. "The process is simple enough. For a dragon." I gave the _vramekh_ a distasteful look. "I suppose I should get this over with." Really, I wouldn't have bothered, but there was something I wanted to ask the last vestige of Ragradia. 

I raised it in my cupped hands and muttered the Laser Breath spell—using my real breath weapon, the Chaos Breath that had nearly killed a high-level Mazoku _by accident_ , wouldn't have been safe here. The sharp-edged light I exhaled struck the _vramekh_ , and there was a bright flash and I was . . . in a realm of dark crystals and mirrors and a bunch of other random crap. Standing about six feet away, directly in front of me, was a stooped old woman leaning on a gnarled walking stick. But I could sense, on the astral, the massive shadow looming behind her. 

"Ragradia," I greeted her. 

"Oh, no, young man. Ragradia has been dead for years, and I'm only the tiniest part of what that name implies. You can call me Auntie Aqua." 

I snorted. "That's certainly disingenuous. You're the continuation of her will. What you want is what she wanted. But from a practical standpoint, I suppose your chosen name is better for getting your attention." 

She tilted her head, as though acknowledging that I'd scored a point. "You would know, I suppose. Do you even know which name is closer to your heart—the one your parents chose for you, or the one he gave you?" 

"The person I was when my parents were still alive is long dead. I was reborn when Gaav took me in. He is the center of my world now . . . and if you want to talk about him, it would be nice if you didn't waste my time and yours prodding at the edges." 

"It isn't just his current state that I want to understand, but yours as well. Besides, no time passes here. Surely you can humour an old woman for a while?" 

I growled wordlessly, but she just smiled. 

"You're still very much a dragon, aren't you, young man? Even after so long among Mazoku, with their essence working inside you." 

"Just because I've chosen a path that the people in my past wouldn't have approved of doesn't mean that past has vanished." I gave her a cold glare, for good measure. 

Auntie Aqua sighed. "I wish I could help you, I truly do, but it's beyond even our power to undo the past, as I'm certain Gaav will have told you." 

"And yet, time-travel spells exist." Really, I only said it because I was feeling contrary. 

"They exist, yes, but they can't noticeably _change_ the past. If you were to go back and try to force events along a path you know they didn't follow the first time, Time itself would wrench things back on course." 

So I'd only succeeded in saving Gaav because I'd yanked him forward from the moment of his death in such a way that everyone present, even Phibrizzo, had been convinced that he _was_ dead. "That just means they have to be applied with some forethought." 

Ragradia's remnant tilted her head to one side. "I'm surprised the Chaos Dragon tolerates you. Or perhaps I'm not. He always did find defiance amusing . . . but normally he crushes it sooner or later." 

"You're wrong," I said flatly. "You may have known him longer than I have, but it was always from the opposite side of a battlefield, wasn't it? Your insight into him could never have been all that deep. Even disregarding how he's changed in the past thousand years, there was always more dragon in him than I think you want to believe." 

"Hmm. You say he's changed." 

I scowled at her. "He turned against Ruby-Eye and chose to forge his own path. If I'm not mistaken, that's something a normal Mazoku would never have been capable of. Just as you could never turn against Ceiphied." 

Auntie Aqua chuckled. "Clever boy. No, we can't directly defy Ceiphied's will, although . . . creative interpretation . . . is certainly possible. My brothers were always terrible at that part." 

"I thought you weren't Ragradia." 

"Permit an old woman a slip of the tongue or two. Gaav, though . . . Gaav was always good at creative interpretation when he thought it was worth the effort. Of all the greater Mazoku, he and Beastmaster were always the most . . . separate. Just as the Water Dragon King was always the most separate of Ceiphied's children. But if he's pulled himself loose completely, that surely represents a violation of the Golden One's plan for the universe." 

I snorted. "The Lord of Nightmares is the incarnation of Chaos itself. Why assume She had a plan? More likely, She just mashed together a bunch of stuff She thought might be interesting, and released it to see what would happen." 

The old woman outright laughed. "I like that theory, I think. It would explain so many things . . . and if it's true, She may actually appreciate what your master has done." 

"He isn't my master," I said, mostly because I didn't like the _way_ she was saying it. 

"Oh? What is he to you, then?" 

"My mate." 

"Your—!" Auntie Aqua stopped dead for several moments, staring me and fingering her staff. "Being willful and rebellious is one thing," she said slowly, "but if he's done _that_ . . . then he truly has gained a mortal's freedom of choice. Standing unconstrained between the darkness and the light was what I always yearned for, and yet I was so terrified of the consequences . . . Trust the Chaos Dragon to forge ahead with perfect confidence!" 

My eyes narrowed. "You're saying that you didn't intend this to happen." 

"I wasn't in existence yet at the key moment . . . but if you're asking if it was _Ragradia's_ intention, then no, it wasn't. She never hoped to do more than seal him away for a few centuries and give the world time to recover. That someone as proud as Gaav would adapt to his shackles and actually _incorporate_ parts of them into his own being is . . . completely unexpected. Young man, you _are_ absolutely certain, aren't you? That it's a true mate bond?" 

"Can't you tell?" 

"It's difficult for me to examine you in any detail when you're all scrunched up like that. I'm not what I used to be, and you seem to have an abnormal amount of power." 

Which I'd been holding in close to me. I relaxed my grip on it just a little bit, letting bands of black and white, red and gold, radiate across the astral . . . but not very _far_ across, since there was a pretty good chance that this was an illusion and I was still sitting in a tent in an army camp the Kataarts, about to set out on a Mazoku-hunt. 

Auntie Aqua's lips parted slightly, and for a moment, I saw naked shock in her eyes. "You're . . ." 

"Not what I started out as either," I said. "Not anymore." 

"But how . . . ?" She shook her head. "Maryuuoh, of course. Having found a partner, he did everything he could to make that person his equal, to lessen the risk of loss. It makes an insane sort of sense. In any case, I can see that the mate-bond between you is absolutely true. You . . . love him." 

"People keep acting like that makes me crazy or something. Yeah, I love him. And he loves me." 

"Not crazy," the old woman said. "No, not crazy at all. For all his faults, Gaav has always been charismatic. He wouldn't ever have been my choice, but I can understand how someone might . . . consider him a desirable partner. But that he returns your feelings . . . the old Gaav wouldn't have been able to do that." 

There was a long pause. _This is as good a time as any,_ I thought, and said, "Okay. So, now that you've found out what you want to know, I've got a question for you." 

Granny Aqua wiped a hand across her face. When she looked up again, her usual pleasant expression was firmly in place. "I'm sorry, young man, I was distracted for a moment there. What would you like to know?" 

"How do I free him?" 

"I'm sorry?" 

"The remnants of whatever spell you, or Ragradia, cast on my mate are still there, tangled around him on the astral. Cutting into him in spots. He's in pain, and even worse, he's trapped in that human body. Dragons need to fly. Including the Chaos Dragon." 

A thoughtful glance. "And you want to safely disperse what's left. Except that I'm not sure just what parts of it _are_ left as a separate construction, and which ones he's dissipated or eaten." 

"You saw him," I said impatiently. "When he entered your dimension in pursuit of Lina Inverse, if not at any other time." 

"I was a bit preoccupied with defending those humans at the time," she said tartly. "That didn't leave me with much attention to spare for examining their attacker deeply on the astral." 

"Quit stalling," I growled. 

She frowned, fingering her staff. "I'll show you the structure of the seal as it was originally cast. That's as much as I can do—it was never intended to be countered or removed. What you do with the information will be up to you, but if you act on it, don't forget to account for the changes created by time and violent action." 

"I'm not an idiot," I said. "And I won't put him at risk." 

"No, I don't suppose you will." She tapped her staff against the dark and amorphous ground, and a complex diagram drawn in white light spread out from the point of impact. "That's how the spell was supposed to work." 

I circled it slowly. I'd expected it to be a holy spell, and I suppose it was, in a sense, although you could have called it black magic and been equally justified. What it wasn't, was powered by Ragradia, or even Ceiphied. 

"I'm surprised you had the balls," I said, tapping the Lord of Nightmares' sigil with the tip of my shoe. 

Auntie Aqua shook her head. "It was desperation, not courage or even bravado. Gaav was so very angry that day, and I—she— _Ragradia_ was so afraid. That he would break the world. That it would be her fault for not stopping him. Because she was the only one who could. All the others were outside the Barrier, unable to see what was going on inside, unable to act . . ." 

I didn't say anything. Although he controlled it pretty well most of the time, Gaav had a temper, and if he'd been angry enough . . . well. He might have done something stupid without stopping to think it through. Hell, there had been one really memorable occasion when I'd ended up cleaning up after him after he'd pulped an official from a country we still needed to work with. 

The spell structure was damnably complex, and I didn't have any way of taking notes. I circled the diagram five or six times, slowly, occasionally crouching down to check a detail, while Auntie Aqua stood off to the side, silent and impassive. It was even more difficult to connect individual structures in the diagram with the chains of fire I'd seen binding my mate on the astral, doubly so since I don't have a perfect memory and it had been centuries since I'd performed that examination. But after the sixth circuit, I knew I wasn't getting any further than I had during the fifth. 

"I've seen enough," I told the remnant of Ragradia, and she let the diagram fade. "Unless you have something else to say, I need to get back." Hopefully she'd pick up the subtext: _Let me out of here, or I'll destroy this illusion/pocket dimension/whatever-it-is._ I thought I probably had enough power to pull it off, although it was power I had yet to test. 

Auntie Aqua sighed. "I suppose keeping you here would be self-indulgent. Good luck, young man." 

The world shattered, and suddenly I was back in the tent, with a chimera and a plushie staring at me. As I'd expected, the _vramekh_ was gone. 

"What are you looking at?" I growled as the dawn light began to spread over the tent canvas. 

"Nothing, I guess," Pokota said. "What did she want to talk to you about?" 

I scowled. "Mostly, the same stuff that Milgazia tried to talk to me about, except that she was a lot more forceful about it. You'd think they could communicate between themselves and leave me out of it." I stepped forward and threw back the tent flap. Zelgadis frowned at the sudden rush of cold air, but didn't say anything. 

His little friend was less restrained. "Where are you going?" 

"Back to bed," I lied—Gaav would be up soon, if he wasn't already. "Do you mind?" 

"No, no, of course not!" 

The sun rose fully above the horizon as I headed back to our tent, and I hadn't quite made it to the flap when Gaav emerged, with his sword slung across his back and a hint of a smirk on his face. 

"Okay, you losers, time to get your asses moving!" His voice thundered effortlessly through the camp. "We've got a lot of ground to cover today, and you're going to examine every inch of it if it takes until midnight!"


	32. Chapter 32

There was a map laid out in the middle of the tent, and Gaav was poking pins into it—well, little slivers of bone, actually, but I figured it was pretty much the same thing. One sliver for each area that had been searched without the troops finding anything. Well, except for the team that had tripped over a human skeleton. Ruby-Eye only knew how long _that_ had been there, or how the poor bastard had died. The soldiers had insisted on hauling the remains back and building a cairn over them at the edge of camp. Gaav hadn't bothered arguing. 

I was on edge, having to grit my teeth and force myself to sit still. The desire to get up and pace was almost overwhelming, as though physical activity would protect me from all the crap sloshing around inside my head. 

A dragon with dark, reddish feathers and a scarred face. The human version of that face, suffused with rage, then contorted with terror. Black and gold fire that disintegrated everything it touched. An old woman leaning on a gnarled staff. A spell diagram that stubbornly refused to mesh with what I saw when I looked at my mate through the deepest layers of the astral. And a Mazoku-half-elf chimera. 

Any one of those things would have provided me with more than enough to think about. Having been hit with them pretty much all at once was making my head hurt. It felt like I was caught in a magically augmented spider's web, sticky and clinging. What was I supposed to do? How could I _use_ any of this to achieve my goals? Hell, at this point, other than ensuring I didn't lose my mate again, what _were_ my goals? 

_One thing at a time,_ I told myself. And the most immediate was . . . not-Zilstan. 

I didn't really want him dead. I'd figured that out already. Truth was, I felt sorry for the poor bastard. He'd been born into nothing, a world without family, comrades, affection. And if he died now, he would have spent pretty much his entire life the same way, with Rashatt as the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend. He was the one person I'd ever met whose life experience might be considered crappier than mine. And he was . . . our hatchling, in an ass-backwards kind of way. 

_I want to give him something better. He_ deserves _something better._

But if he wouldn't submit, there was nothing I could do. The moment some other Dark Lord found him, he'd be forced to give himself over, or die. The stupid fool. But I couldn't think of anything I could say that would persuade him. He honestly believed that Gaav wanted him destroyed. That my mate wanted, effectively, to eat him. I suspected that even if I risked my neck to save his life at this point, he'd probably just convince himself that Gaav wanted to keep his dinner fresh. 

So that was one thing with no damned solution. 

My current power, and my shaky ability to control it, was . . . a less immediate problem. One that would solve itself, given time and practice. Except that I didn't have time, and there were too many fragile humans around here for me to get much practice. Brief experiments performed while we'd been on our way up here from Gyria City had led me to discover that my new breath weapon cut through the astral as well as the physical, and did so with terrifying power. It was almost comparable to a shot from Galvayra. 

I still didn't know what _else_ I could do. After this was over, I would have to hole up in a pocket in the astral for a while and just blast things, trying to get a handle on it. For now, I didn't dare draw up more power than I had used in the old days. 

Was I the equal of a Dark Lord? I wasn't sure, but I was certainly . . . less unequal. Another thing we had to test. Hell, was Gaav even properly a Dark Lord anymore, given that he'd broken from Ruby-Eye and thrown his lot in with mortals? Maybe we needed to come up with a new title. Alternatively, maybe I would have to find or create my own General and Priest. That was . . . I don't know. Funny and disturbing at once. What would I even want in a follower? Certainly nothing like Rashatt or Raltaak, or even Xellos. I'd rather have . . . a Hen-chan. Without the crush on me. Or maybe I could promote Jillas . . . 

I snorted softly, and Gaav looked up from the map. "Don't think so hard your brains fry, little dragon. We may have to get moving soon, anyway. Look at this." 

He pointed at an area on the gridded-off map. The surrounding squares were all skewered, but that one was blank. 

"Failure to report in?" I asked, and my mate grunted an affirmative. 

"It might just be more shit like that skeleton, or one of them fell down a cliff and they're trying to rig a stretcher so that they can haul him out, but I'm not betting on it. I'm allowing ten more minutes for them to at least send a runner to the local comms point. After that . . ." He shrugged, but his meaning was clear. After that, the two of us would go. 

I bent over the table so that I could study the map more closely. The unskewered square seemed to be mostly filled with an odd U-shaped canyon at the end of one of the wrinkles in the landscape. A blind space that you could see into only from above. The kind of place I might have picked if I'd wanted to hide around here. Especially if there were caves. 

To keep myself from fidgeting while I waited, I pulled out my imitation Ragud Mezegis and pretended to check it over. Not that it was likely to break, but I needed something to do, and listening to the brief reports that came in wasn't enough. Gaav skewered three more map squares over the next ten minutes, but none of them were the one he'd pointed out. 

When the ten minutes were up, he rose to his feet in a single smooth motion, settled his sword across his back, and left the tent. I followed, wishing I thought I looked half as nonchalant. 

"Rashatt," my mate said to the air, and suddenly the other Mazoku was . . . just there. "Find someone to take over here. I want you along on this." 

"Right." The General turned and tapped a gaping soldier on the elbow. "Find Colonel Drien." 

That turned out to be the hook-nosed man with the weathered face who had initially protested Gaav's leadership. He didn't protest this time, when asked to take over the command tent. 

"Ready?" my mate asked us once Drien was fully ensconced. "Let's go, then." 

" _Wait!_ " Familiar voice. The chimera was approaching us, along with Pokota, who was sitting on his head . . . and Hen-chan, following along behind them both. 

Surprisingly, Gaav waited, turning to face the approaching trio. "I doubt you're here to give us a fucking send-off, so let's have it." 

"We're coming with you." That was Pokota, sounding surprisingly firm. 

"Oh?" Gaav raised an eyebrow. 

"Somebody has to keep an eye on you," the chimera said. 

"Mortals," Rashatt muttered, scowling. 

Gaav shrugged. "I don't give a flying fuck, so long as you stay out of the way. And your safety is your own problem, understand?" 

"As though we'd expect anything else," Pokota said, rolling his eyes. 

"Protecting us wouldn't be a very Mazoku thing to do, would it?" Hen-chan added. "Not even a very dragon thing to do, I don't think." He glanced at me as he said that part. 

"I'm not exactly a typical dragon," I said. "Anyway, if you're coming, get closer. There's no point in wasting energy by grabbing you from over there . . . and you don't want to pop back out stuck halfway into a rockface, which isn't unlikely around here." 

Hen-chan winced, Zelgadis frowned, and they all got closer. They were within arm's length when Gaav grabbed hold of space, folded it, and punched us through. 

The first thing I noticed when we popped out again was how different the air smelled. The camp had inevitably acquired all of those human scents in fairly short order: woodsmoke and cooking and steel, latrines and mules and unwashed soldiers. This place . . . smelled like pine and wet rock. Like there had never been anyone here but us. And maybe that was even true. 

We were on a ledge above the floor of the cul-de-sac canyon, looking down at the path of a stream that sprang from the rockface, trickled along a short, tree-lined bed, then vanished underground again. There was no sign of the quartet of humans who should have been investigating the area. 

And then the light breeze changed directions, and I smelled something so out-of-place that it took me a moment to identify it: the ocean, with its peculiar tang of salt water, seaweed, and organic decay. My eyes widened. _Oh, shit!_

"Her timing's always been shitty," Gaav said aloud. 

"Her?" That was Pokota. 

"Deep-Sea Dolphin," I said. "Or one of her higher-level minions. There's no way of telling from here." 

"So things just got a whole lot worse?" Hen-chan said tentatively. 

"Pretty much," Rashatt said. 

"And the men we sent here are probably dead, unless she thinks she can use them as hostages," Gaav said, with a scowl. Rashatt gave him an odd look. "My bitch sister, or her minions, are going to be expecting us, too." 

I raised my eyebrows. "I thought Zelas was the bitch." 

My mate snorted, but at least he looked less grim. 

"Don't tell me taking hostages would actually work on you," the chimera said. 

"Getting ideas? But no, it wouldn't. Even if you somehow managed to snag Val, 'cause I'd trust him to fight his own way loose if it came to that. Dolphin might think I've fallen further than I have, though." 

"But you've ordered us not to kill," Rashatt said. "Over and over again. For centuries, now." 

Gaav shrugged. "Killing innocent bystanders draws attention, makes it more difficult to cultivate mortals as allies, and generally messes things up. Plus, I know first-hand how crappy death and dying are. They're not something I'd inflict on anyone by accident." 

Zelgadis' mouth twisted—the chimera was smart enough to fill in the missing half of that sentence: _but I don't mind doing it on purpose._

"I guess that's another one of those things I'm never going to understand," Rashatt said, his scowl rivalling the one his progenitor had produced a few moments ago. 

"Probably. Now, let's go. No sense in putting this off." 

Gaav seldom chose to fly. I think it may have reminded him too much of everything he'd lost, unable to launch himself into the air on his wings instead of with his powers. But he lifted himself off the ledge now, without hesitation. Rashatt followed him immediately, and I launched after them, wings spread wide. Behind me, I heard the chimera's voice speak Chaos Words: "Ray Wing!" 

We skimmed down the canyon together, with Hen-chan inside Zelgadis' wind-bubble. The sudden geyser of water that shot up at us from the bend wasn't unexpected, just annoying. I dodged in midair and sent a Demona Crystal shooting back, which froze the geyser and created a spectacular (if temporary) ice feature jutting up past the level of the surrounding cliffs. 

Someone giggled, and a feminine voice said, "Oh, excellent reflexes! I can see why you like this one, brother-mine." 

She appeared at the top of the frozen geyser: a tall, regal woman with blue hair, wearing a full-skirted, puffy-sleeved dress the colour of sea foam, with a wide collar ornamented with gems in all shades of blue and green. A dark sash drew attention to her tiny waist. She had only one feature in common with Gaav, a pair of ocean-coloured eyes, but where his brimmed with fire and life, hers were flat and dead. I thought that was more likely a flaw in her physical projection than an indication of her character, though. 

"His reflexes are only one reason," Gaav rumbled. "Why the fuck are you here, anyway? You can't be after me—you aren't dumb enough to take that kind of risk." 

Deep-Sea Dolphin—after all, she couldn't be anyone else—smiled. "Do you really think you can fight me when you're in that state, brother-mine? No wonder Hellmaster was able to take a chunk out of you. I'm surprised you survived that." 

My mate snorted. "Phibby ambushed me while I was fighting someone else. If I'd known he was there, I would have turned him into a fucking wet spot on the mountainside. You're not going to have the advantage of catching me alone and distracted. Since you're so dense, I'll repeat the question in case you missed it the first time: Why the fuck are you here?" 

"Well, your manners certainly haven't improved," Dolphin said. "And here I came all the way into the _mountains_ for your benefit." 

"Either your brain's melted at some point in the last thousand years, or you think mine has. You hated me even when we were on the same side. It'll be a warm day in Dynast's parlor before you do _me_ a fucking favour." 

"Mmm, well, all right, not for your _benefit_ , exactly, then. I was going to clean up a loose end for you." 

Gaav's eyes narrowed, and I felt an uncomfortable pressure from the astral side. "I handle my own loose ends. You'll just fuck it up. Whatever it is." 

"Oh, nothing much. I just thought, since you seem to have a high-level spawn you don't want—" 

"You keep your hands off of him!" I snarled, and Dolphin's eyebrows shot up. 

"Do the reflexes make up for the rebelliousness, brother-mine?" she asked, half-ignoring me. 

"Telling _you_ off doesn't mean he's acting against _my_ will. In fact, I very much agree with him: keep your hands off my spawn! He isn't free for the taking—or for the killing." 

Dolphin laughed, raising a hand gracefully to cover her mouth as she did so. "Oh, dear. You didn't really think I'd destroy something so _useful_ , did you? Well, not unless he's even more rebellious than your dragon, anyway. Even if he isn't inclined to be obedient at first, I'm sure I can persuade him over time. Unfortunate that your little lost one is a male, but you're incapable of spawning anything else, aren't you?" 

"And you can't spawn anything but females," Gaav snapped. "Like it fucking matters. Let's cut to the chase: are you going to get the fuck out of here on your own, or do we have to _get_ you the fuck out?" 

"'We'?" 

I growled, and the mountains echoed the sound back at me. "Bet your ass it's 'we'," I said, and relaxed my tight hold on my power, letting it show through the dark fog covering the astral. 

Dolphin froze—not as a mortal might have, where her body would still have been breathing and making small involuntary movements while her mind fought to process what she was perceiving, but completely, as though someone had stopped time around her. She'd withdrawn her attention from her physical projection, and I wondered why she seemed to be . . . not so much unskilled at manipulating it as having a hard time keeping her attention on it. Maybe she just didn't spend a lot of time interacting with the physical plane, and hadn't developed much skill at dividing her attention between the two sides of the world. I knew first-hand just how difficult that was. 

Her projection regained animation between one breath and the next, and the first words out of her mouth were, "Are you insane?" 

Gaav smirked. "No, you're fucking hallucinating." 

Off to my left, Rashatt, who had been subdued so far, snickered. 

"Something . . . like this . . . Do you have any idea what the consequences could be, brother-mine?" 

"Oh, believe me, I do. And they all benefit me. Most of them hurt you, too." Gaav reached back over his shoulder. "Last chance—are you going to leave on your own, now that you've seen some of what you're going to be facing?" 

Dolphin smiled. "Like you, I haven't come alone," she said, and Huraker appeared beside her, along with a host of lesser Mazoku . . . a host that unfortunately contained one familiar face. 

Of course, I should have known Kellelan would be here,. My luck's always like that. Dolphin (or Huraker) might even have brought him on purpose. 

The Dark Lord's expression became serious as she raised her arms. "One way or another, brother-mine, it ends here. You've been a thorn in all of our sides for far too long."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the only guaranteed-canon picture of Dolphin I was able to find was the black-and-white illustration from _Demon Slayers!_.


	33. Chapter 33

"Fuck," Rashatt muttered. "Here we go again." 

Gaav grunted agreement. "Val, you're on Huraker to start. Rashatt, you get the small fry, then help Val. Once you've dealt with that nuisance Priest, I want you both out looking for our missing pieces. I'll handle Dolphin." 

"Missing pieces?" Hen-chan asked as I pulled the Ragud Mezegis from my back and activated it. 

"The guy we came up here looking for, and Dolphin's General, I'd guess," Zelgadis said. There might have been more, but I didn't hear it, too busy folding my wings for the short drop onto the frozen geyser. 

I came in low and vicious, looping below the level of the icy surface and thrusting up at Huraker through the edge of it, trusting my imitation Weapon of Light to cut through. I also forced myself to open my senses to the astral, although I knew that with this many lesser Mazoku about, the other side was going to be cacophonous. 

That turned out to be an understatement. Tracking the geometries of both planes, who was where, where the explosions were going off, and how one side connected to the other, was going to give me a headache in fairly short order. I did have one advantage, though: except for Gaav and Rashatt, everyone nearby was an enemy, since the chimera had sensibly withdrawn a good half a mile back and up. So I didn't have to worry much about hitting the wrong person. 

Huraker struck back using one of her true form's tentacles—a miscalculation on her part. The real Ragud Mezegis hadn't existed on the astral, despite being able to attack there. After all, it had been from the Overworld. The fake in my hands _looked_ like it had substance on both sides . . . but only when it was active, and even that was deceptive. Huraker's tentacle passed right through it, and I grinned viciously, using the force of my will to extend the blades out longer. I didn't succeed in piercing her main body, but I did stab the main blade right through a tentacle. 

It took all my attention to do that, though, and I felt something kiss the side of my face on the physical, followed by a trickle of blood along my cheekbone. One cord from the multi-lashed whip Huraker was using as a weapon had struck me, and it had the characteristics of razor wire. So that pass had come out even, pretty much. 

Suddenly, there were multiple tentacles and whip-lashes incoming, too many and too fast for me to use anything except pure trained reflex to dodge and parry. I didn't even have a chance to use my breath weapon, much less gather my power to attempt anything more elaborate. But I didn't leave her with any attention to spare either, swinging my weapon as though possessed. Which was the whole point. I didn't have to beat her, just hold out until Rashatt was done with the small fry. 

He was taking his time, though. What the hell was the hold-up? 

Knowing it was a risk, I suddenly jumped up into the air, propelling myself only with my powers, hoping that Huraker was angry enough by now to chase me instead of backing off. Gaav and Dolphin were high above, operating in an ultra-speed mode that kept me from seeing more than a pair of blurs. Most of the lesser Mazoku were already gone, dead or fled, but Rashatt had frozen in front of . . . 

I growled softly. This was worse than anything I'd imagined. What did those idiots think they were doing? Granted, Hen-chan was young and impulsive, but Zelgadis was both old enough and smart enough to know better. And yet both of them (along with Pokota the plushie prince) had positioned themselves between Rashatt and Kellelan. And Rashatt was hesitating to plow straight through them, maybe because of Zelgadis' connection to Lina Inverse. 

I barrelled downward, landing beside Rashatt with a force that would have broken a human's legs. I punched the Mazoku's arm to get his attention. 

"Leave them," I said. "And, chimera, you'd better make damned sure that your little act of generosity doesn't result in us being attacked from the rear, or I'm going to turn you _all_ into meat paste, and Lina Inverse as well when she shows up for revenge." 

Zelgadis nodded. I cast around, looking for Huraker, and was almost stabbed straight through by a tentacle. I dodged instinctively. Only afterwards, too late, did I realize who had been on the other side of me. 

There was no way Hen-chan would be able to dodge too—even if he'd been fast enough, he couldn't even _see_ that there was something about to push out of the astral and into the physical. I'd just killed him. By accident, which was what _really_ pissed me off. Fucked up _again_ , ran away _again_ , while blood rained down from the skies . . . 

There was a meaty _chunk_ as the tentacle struck home. 

But not in Hen-chan's body. 

Kellelan had pushed him out of the way with one of his spider-legs. 

Huraker's tentacle struck the half-elf-Mazoku chimera in the side, then tore straight through the center of his body to exit near the other armpit. Kellelan wasn't strong enough to prevent the wound from being fatal, but he also wasn't weak enough to die instantly. He vomited blood and collapsed, but he was also conscious, his eyes tracking me as I moved to stand over him. 

"You idiot," I said. They were the only words that would come out. 

"Several times over. I wanted . . . so badly . . . I thought I was willing to pay any price, any price at all, but you wouldn't even let me make you an offer . . . and then . . ." He coughed. Spat more blood. "Did . . . Sorrel-san really die? I keep dreaming . . . his ghost . . ." 

"He's alive," I said, and Kel sagged with relief. 

"That's . . . good. Val, tell Jillas-san that I'm sorry for hur—" 

The light faded from his eyes in mid-word, and his head fell to the side. 

_You idiot,_ I thought again. _What was that all about? Why the sudden change of heart? What the fuck am I supposed to tell your family when I can't even make sense of your death myself?_

"I'm starting to wonder why I recruited such an idiot in the first place," Huraker said from behind me, halting the motions of her tentacles. "Or what it is that your master sees in mortals." 

I smiled crookedly. Bitterly. "You've just witnessed exactly what he sees in us: the freedom to choose. This time, it didn't work to your advantage—probably because you don't understand what mortals really want." 

Rashatt, I noted, had an odd look on his face, a sort of pensive frown. Suddenly he reached out, cupping his hands. 

"W-what are you—?" Pokota began, then trailed off again as Rashatt didn't so much as glance in his direction. He couldn't see what Rashatt was reaching out to, because it was only visible on the astral: a ball of foxfire light that was bobbing around in a confused sort of way until the talons of Rashatt's astral body curled gently around it, capturing it. 

"You've all gone crazy," Huraker said as the General pulled Kel's soul in towards him. 

"Maybe," Rashatt said, still without turning to look at anyone. "But if I don't do this, I'll never understand . . ." He looked at the soul caught between his hands, and a grimace of distaste moved across his face, but he still pushed it into his mouth. And swallowed. 

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then his physical projection froze, and . . . stuttered, I suppose you could say, a distortion running up from his feet to the top of his head and then back down again. "The fuck," he muttered . . . without his lips moving to shape the words. "Feels fucking weird. Ugh. What is . . . ? What have I been . . . ?" 

I didn't have time to listen to the rest of his babbling, because at that moment Huraker unfroze, and her tentacles started spearing toward me again. Unfortunately for her, she'd spent long enough staring at the little tableau along with me that I'd thoroughly caught my breath, and I was able to exhale chaos at her. 

I didn't hit her squarely, but then I hadn't expected to. I did lop off several tentacles, and she hissed a curse and drew the others back in toward her main body. I also turned the whip she'd been using on the physical into a small pile of black powder. 

"I can see now why Riksfalto was so pissed off at you," she said. "Well, no matter. We've bought her enough time, anyway." 

I narrowed my eyes. " _What?!_ " I would have thought Dolphin's General was still recovering from what I'd done to her. Surely she couldn't be in good enough shape to take on not-Zilstan alone . . . unless she'd figured out how to provoke one of his hallucinatory episodes . . . _oh, shit._

Huraker giggled. "I can see what you're thinking, and you still haven't gone _big_ enough. This was never about your little friend, it was about getting rid of the traitor. _This_ time, he isn't going to escape. Phibrizzo was stupid, exposing himself to that much risk. Here, I'll spell it out for you: she's gone over the edge." The Priest waved her hand in the direction of the crater's rim and laughed loudly before vanishing into the astral and fleeing at top speed. 

Over the . . . edge? Into the lands under the thrall of the King in the North. To talk to him. A fragment of Shabranigdo. One of the very few forces left in the world that might be stronger than the Dark Lords he'd spawned. 

This was a plot to lure my mate out and kill him. Hell, Huraker had probably primed not-Zilstan to come up here—I'd spotted one of Dolphin's spawn at the palace the day I'd first met the renegade, and not thought anything of it because I'd known Rashatt had inherited some of the dregs Gaav had scraped together in the old days. But that one had never transferred her allegiance. 

Anger erupted in me like a volcano, and I took on my true form while in the act of leaping upward. " _Dolphin!_ " I thundered her name in the voice of an enraged dragon, shaking the very stones of the mountains and cracking the ice of the frozen geyser. Fortunately, Zelgadis had the presence of mind to cast Ray Wing around his party, but Rashatt, still somewhat dazed, fell a good thirty feet before vanishing somewhere below. I didn't know what had happened to him, and I didn't care. I was driving straight towards the two blurs of light in the sky, the two massive beasts tearing at each other on the astral, pressing forward with as much speed as I'd ever used in fighting Xellos. 

Deep-Sea Dolphin's true form in no way resembles her namesake. She's more like a sea dragon (which aren't really dragons at all), long and twisty, with dark blue scales and a head like a frilled lizard's. It was a shape that worked well enough for slithering through the astral, but less well in the sky of the physical plane. There, Gaav, with his massive, winged body, had the advantage. Which was just as well, since he could barely defend himself on the astral side with his senses blunted by his chimera state. 

I wasn't exactly having an easy time following Dolphin's actions on the astral either, but unlike my mate, I wasn't trying to watch her and fight her at the same time. I could wait patiently, observing where and when she chose to pop out into the physical, until I was able to catch her in the very moment of emergence. My talons, edged with crackling black-gold fire, slashed into her, leaving long gashes in her hide. Her astral substance leaked from them in a haze of black. 

"Your priest has already turned tail and run. What a coward," I taunted. 

"Val . . ." Gaav's tone was full of warning, and his tail lashed with irritation. 

_Trust me._ I whispered the words to him telepathically, essence to essence. A slight wrinkling in the brow ridges of his left head was the only hint he'd received them. 

"If you try to hold us here any longer, we'll rip you to shreds," I warned Dolphin. "Your little plan won't do you much good if you're dead, now, will it?" 

It was true: given a little time, the two of us working together could have torn her apart. However, I had a nasty suspicion it was a little time we didn't have. 

I'd never seen a sea dragon—or a frilled lizard—scowl before. It looked . . . very odd, although still dragon-like enough that I could interpret the expression. "She told you, did she? I'll have to punish her for that. But very well, I'll back off. Enjoy your father-son bonding time, dear brother." 

With that, she vanished into the astral. One of my mate's heads peered after her suspiciously, but the other two turned to me. "Fuck—did she mean what I think she meant?" 

I nodded. "She sent Riksfalto into the crater. I don't know for sure that he'll listen to her, but if he does . . ." 

"Shit. Well, we have one advantage: she isn't powerful enough to break him out of the ice cube. There are still a few ways he could play things, but regardless, we aren't going to have to challenge his full power." 

"So we're going to face him head-on." 

His right head nodded. "If we don't, then at very least he trashes the area. Dragons, the humans we brought, and our missing idiot. And like hell am I going to run away from a fight I think we can win. If I thought Dolphin were going to come back, or one of the others might show up, I'd be more worried, but they hate him almost as much as I do. They won't risk getting given an order that they'll have to obey. Where's the chimera?" 

It took me a moment to realize he was referring to Zelgadis, and point. 

"Right. Find Rashatt and see if he's gotten himself sorted out, will you? If he hasn't, slap him a few times or something to snap him out of it. I don't know how much time we have, but I doubt we have enough to fool around." 

"I'm on it." I folded my wings and dropped. 

Rashatt had fallen clear of the ice, folding himself over a streamside boulder. He wasn't moving, so I nudged him ungently with my nose. He smelled of nothing in particular. Apparently he didn't choose to put that much detail into his physical projection, even though he was so careful with the visual aspect. 

He sat up and scrubbed a hand across his face. "Val," he said slowly. "I feel . . . fucking weird." There was something odd in his expression, too, although I couldn't quite put my talon on it. 

"Think about it later," I told him. "We have trouble on the way." 

"Trouble?" 

"Dolphin sent Riksfalto off to stir up the King in the North. We don't know what the result is going to be, but if it works out to anything good, I'll walk the perimeter of Old Sairaag naked on my hands." 

The black fog on the astral roiled, as though to underscore my words, and I tasted despair, like Seyruun's finest soft-serve ice-cream. Not Mazoku despair, though. This was purely mortal. _What in hell—?_

The sky on the physical, which had been blue with little white wisps of cirrus cloud until then, started to darken rapidly, and a wind whipped up, tearing at my feathers. That was always a bad sign. Then hail started to pelt down, and visibility dropped like a stone. 

In the darkness, someone screamed. I didn't think anyone from our group could have produced something so high-pitched, though, unless Zelgadis and his hangers-on hadn't gotten out in time. 

"Who's there?" I shouted into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I did _not_ expect Rashatt to do that when I started writing this, but he insisted. Eheheheh . . .


	34. Chapter 34

Around me, faint grey glows began to take on form and substance, and I tasted hate, meaty and full-flavoured like well-aged venison. Again, it was mortal hate, with a depth and complexity Mazoku emotions didn't normally possess. 

I was able to pick shapes out of the roaring dark now, glimmering grey figures. Human, dragon, elf, and members of some of the rarer mortal races. Carrying weapons and wearing armour. Some of the humans wore uniforms belonging to the armies of long-dead nations. And none of them looked at all happy. 

I knew right away that they weren't illusions, because every single one of them clearly represented a different individual. Mass illusion-casting tends to result in lots of duplicates and blurred details. There was none of that here. 

These were the spirits of the dead of the Kouma War, those who had died in these icy wastes and been unable to move on afterwards. Abandoned even by Hellmaster, who hadn't dared approach the King in the North, they'd roamed the empty crater for a thousand years. 

Small wonder they were pissed off. 

"Shit," Rashatt said from beside me. A dragon ghost looked at him with contempt. "What the fuck is this, a meeting of Losers Anonymous? Get out of my way." 

He waved his hand, and a bunch of ghosts went _poof_. It didn't even make a dent in the overall population, though. There had to be hundreds of thousands of spirits out there. 

The question was, why? As a general rule, ghosts aren't dangerous to anyone who maintains basic astral protections, and even a human shrine maiden knows how to kick a possessing spirit out of its borrowed body. The only thing I could think of that they might be able to do was grab onto the human troops we'd brought and march them off a cliff or something, and right now the humans were widely scattered and mostly nowhere near here. 

Then the direction of the wind changed. It became a whirlwind, whipping all the ghosts around and around and drawing them in toward a central point . . . and I felt the scales on the back of my neck hackle. 

"Destroy as many of them as you can!" I yelled at Rashatt, unleashing my own power in a ragged arc. I still didn't know what was going on, but if these were Ruby-Eye's chosen playing pieces, destroying them couldn't hurt. 

We cut down thousands of ghosts, and from above us there came a roar that wasn't that of the wind, and red fire spangled itself across the sky—Gaav had had the same idea. Between us, we might have gotten as much as a quarter of the spirits before they were all sucked into the whirlwind. I fired off a beam of chaos at the whirlwind itself, but it bounced and powdered a mountainside. 

Something was going on in there. I could feel it. The spirits were being drawn together in a lump, combined into . . . something. They'd just been raw material. 

Then the wind died down, leaving everything eerily calm (except for the hail that was still bouncing off my scales), and revealing a monstrous form in what had been the heart of the whirlwind. Heavy body, multiple heads . . . but not neatly symmetrical heads of the same size, like Gaav's. These came in a grab-bag of sizes, and many were misshapen, or changed in contour from moment to moment. The resulting creature looked a lot like Darkstar. Which suggested it was a representation of Ruby-Eye himself, whom I'd never seen in person—just through a scrying spell I'd watched over Gaav's shoulder, as Lina Inverse took down the fragment that had been housed in Rezo the Red Priest. My lover had been monitoring that closely, just in case she failed and we had to step in to avoid letting Shabranigdo loose in the world again. 

The thing stomped a forefoot, and the clouds above us began to turn red. What little vegetation was nearby began to wither, and I smelled something foul. 

A growl from above. "Fuck, who are you trying to kid? You think that stupid makeshift body can hold enough power to fight me? I used to think you were brighter than that, _Dad_." 

Red fire lanced down, searing a path through the ghostly Shabranigdo's body. It made an odd noise like a distant howl and lost a little of its substance. 

Several figures dropped from the sky to land in the lee of my wing as the wind began to pick up again—not just my mate, but also Zelgadis, Pokota, and Hen-chan. 

" . . . thought that was going to kill him for sure," Hen-chan was saying. 

Gaav shook his head. "That thing out there isn't really solid. I sheared off maybe eighty, ninety ghosts, but it's going to take hours to get rid of it at that rate. At the same time, it isn't much danger to me, or to Val—possibly not even to Rashatt." One of the larger heads of the ghost-creature breathed out a ball of energy, as though to offer a demonstration. Gaav blocked it with a snort and a gesture. "See what I mean? Unless it's going to get stronger as it gets its act together, then it's just a fucking timewaster. Possibly a distraction." 

Zelgadis frowned. "A distraction from what?" 

Red light suddenly erupted under our feet: a magic circle. A very large one, large enough to enclose even my dragon body completely. I got a jumbled impression of symbols for time and mind and Ruby-Eye in the instant before I was suddenly . . . elsewhere. 

Soft sand, under my feet and my belly. Dim etheric lighting that became visible as I opened my eyes. Cave. A large cave, set up for a dragon's comfort in his natural form. There was even a privacy spell across the entry, blocking sight and sound. 

A head pushed through the spell even as I was groggily staring at it. A black-scaled head, with feathers covering the ear-holes and forming a delicate crest at the rear of her skull. "Val? Are you awake?" 

"Calya?" The name, long-forgotten, just popped into my head. "You're alive!" 

"Well, of course I am, silly! You say the strangest things sometimes, Val." 

I stared at her as she ducked all the way into the room . . . into my private lair at the aerie, oh shit it really was, and this was my cousin and agemate who was nuzzling my neck. She worked in the nursery, tending eggs and watching the hatchlings while their parents were busy elsewhere, I remembered as rusty portions of my brain creaked into motion. 

"I think I had a nightmare," I said slowly. 

She quirked her tail and wrinkled her eye ridges in enquiry. "Bad, was it?" 

"I . . ." The words caught in my throat. Everything I remembered—that entire, self-consistent reality and everyone in it, just a nightmare? It didn't seem possible, and yet . . . and yet, here I was. With her. "'Bad' doesn't cover even half of it. The Goldens came. They wanted Galvayra, and when the Elders wouldn't give it to them, they attacked us. Slaughtered everyone down to the last unhatched egg. Everyone except me. I was rescued . . . by a renegade Mazoku. I became his servant, and . . . oh, Calya, some of the things I did . . ." 

"Sounds like one heck of a nightmare, all right," she said, nuzzling me again. "But that's all it was. Chin up." 

I butted her shoulder. "It's going to take a little while for this one to wear off, but I think I'm all right. So, why did you come here?" 

She grinned. "Oh, nothing. It's just that I finally persuaded Perrem to mate me." 

"That's great!" Not that I could remember who Perrem was. My head was still full of dream-sludge. "Congratulations." 

Even as I spoke the word, I was fighting down a sudden violent pang of longing. My mate . . . my dream . . . Gaav. He should have been there, stretched out beside me with one head raised to join in the conversation, and another resting sleepily on my flank . . . _Dreams,_ I told myself. _Just dreams._ But how I ached . . . 

"Don't worry," Calya said. "You'll find someone too, eventually. I know a couple of girls at the hatchery who think you're—" 

"I think I might be tav-ereng." I blurted out the Draconic word for a male who was sexually submissive to other males, and instantly felt hot under my scales. _Why did I say that? Why in hell did I say that? The stupid dream?_

Calya blinked several times. She clearly hadn't expected that particular intimate confession. Of course, I hadn't been expecting to make it. "Well, that's . . . a little harder. You've got most of the males in our age group scared stiff of you. It would have to be someone older, and I don't know . . . let me think about it." 

"Thanks," I said, a bit stiffly. The older males . . . faces blurred inside my mind. I couldn't remember a single one of them as an individual. What in hell was wrong with me? While I'd been inside the dream, I'd wanted nothing more than to be back here. Or had I? Why did that feel . . . not quite right? Why did I feel so empty, now that I'd woken up? Why did I feel like I'd trade them away, all the lives of my people, just to hear him call me _little dragon_ one more time? 

_Gaav . . ._

I had to be insane. To love a Dark Lord. To love a dream, and love him so powerfully that I could feel the phantom tug of a mate bond against my spirit . . . 

It was awfully powerful, for a phantom. When I pulled at it, the roots just seemed to dig themselves in deeper. 

But this was real, wasn't it? That ridiculous, fantastic, horrible other reality had been a dream. There was no way I was important enough to draw the attention of creatures like that. Dark Lords. Darkstar and Volphied. The Golden One Herself. It didn't make sense . . . except . . . 

If it was real, I told myself, then the things I had learned in the dream would still work. And so I concentrated on the astral. 

There was a sharp pain in my head, and a sense of bursting through a membrane, and then part of me was lost in a roaring torrent of darkness where the only light was a golden glow from my own body, while Calya nudged at the part that was still on the other side and asked if I was alright. 

_Time and mind._ Ruby-Eye's ghostly avatar had drawn all of this up from my deep memories, giving me everything I'd thought I wanted. Except that it hadn't been able to figure out that I wasn't willing to give up what I had in return for this. And it hadn't been able to create a decent mock-up of something that wasn't in my memories, namely the astral body of another Ancient Dragon. 

"Val, you're really starting to worry me," the phantom Calya said. 

"Bullshit," I said. "You've been dead for nearly a thousand years—you were inside the hatchery, trying to save the eggs, when half a mountain came down on it." 

"Val—" 

"If you don't have your heart anymore, your heart's desire is _worthless_ ," I growled, and reached out along the mate-bond, using all the power I could muster to draw myself toward what was at the other end. Because that was where my heart was. 

Darkness, and the sound of thunder. There was something wrapped around me, pinning my limbs and holding my jaws shut, and I thrashed violently, trying to get loose. 

"Val! Damn it, little dragon—" 

I tried to roar, but it came out muffled. The Golden One only knew if I'd made any sound on the physical at all—I could tell that my perceptions were currently locked to the astral. And the thing restraining me was grey and full of faces. 

_You son of a bitch._ It was a neat little trick, I had to admit: stealing _my_ body and powers to fight my mate. Not only was I strong enough now to make it a decent contest, but Gaav would be very reluctant to hurt me. I thrashed harder, but it didn't gain me very much, although I was able to open my mouth a couple of inches. Not enough, really, but . . . Fuck. This was going to hurt, but I couldn't see that I had any other choice. 

Ruby-Eye's ghost wasn't bothering to hold my neck at a specific angle, so I was able to crane my head around and aim before I breathed out. Black-gold chaos disintegrated my lips and front teeth, but enough of it got past and out to strike the moving grey. I writhed mightily one more time, and the greyness broke, leaving me free, and catapulting me back to the physical in the same instant. 

I was lying on my belly on a messy mixture of ice fragments and water-rounded stones, with a small weight clinging to the base of my skull. My tail lashed as I tried to get my feet under me. 

"Shid," I said through the mushy mess my Chaos Breath had made of part of my mouth. "Anyone gotta Res'rection shpell? 'Cause thish 'urtsh like a shonuvabish." 

"Blessed, humble hand of divinity, breath of Mother Earth," rumbled a familiar voice right by my earhole, "I pray that you come before me, show your great compassion to this person, and deliver him— _Resurrection!_ " The healing that flowed through me was subtly tainted with darkness, but that just made it all the easier for me to drink it in. I spat tooth fragments as their replacements grew in. "Are you back with us, little dragon?" 

"Yeah—sorry if I worried you. Where's our pet ghost?" I figured we could have the reunion later. Right now, Ruby-Eye was still out there. 

"Hiding, from the looks of it. I just hope it's run out of tricks. It only had me for a couple of seconds, but I just about took your head off, thinking you were Ragradia. _Fuck._ We need to find it before it can pull any more crap, and I'd need to put out a lot of power to do that in this . . . unless . . ." 

"Unless what?" I recognized the just-came-up-with-a-plan inflection in my mate's voice, so I prodded him a bit. 

"Can you go diffuse with that fancy new breath weapon of yours?" 

I wrinkled my eye ridges. "I haven't tried." 

"Try now." 

"Right." 

I made sure my mouth was open as wide as I could get it this time before I breathed out. Diffuse. I'd been taught how to do it with Moonshadow Breath, but my original breath weapon hadn't had that minor problem with dissolving my mouth if not ejected properly. Still, I did the best I could, relaxing my throat and exhaling like I was trying to mist a cold mirror. 

Crackling gold spread out in front of me in a mist that made my face sting, and I jerked my head back before it could dissolve my eyeballs or something. There was a sudden gust of wind from behind that pushed the stuff away from me, and I sensed threads of Gaav's power in it. He used it to dissolve both the sleet and windborne crap we were seeing on the physical, and the black mist on the astral. For just a moment, off in the distance, I caught a glimpse of something red. Then it was gone again. 

We couldn't be sure that it was the ghost-Shabranigdo, but investigating it was better than waiting here to be attacked again. 

"Rashatt, keep an eye on the small fry," Gaav ordered, eliciting an indignant "Hey!" from Hen-chan. "Let's go," my mate added, and flew up into the sky. I found I missed the weight of him, straddling my neck right at the base of my skull . . . but now wasn't the time to be sentimental. Instead, I leapt up, pushing my wings downward, and rose beside him. 

The flare of red had come from the dead-end part of the canyon. That left us flying face-first into the sleet. Bits of ice bounced off my scales, and I created a minimal shield around my eyes to keep the stuff out of them. Roughly level with me, Gaav wasn't so much flying as making short, jerky teleports, stopping for a split second at each point to examine the situation before disappearing into another fold in space, while Rashatt and the mortals trailed behind and below. 

Then we broke out of the sleet, and things immediately got worse. 

Cold. The air here was cold enough to burn, and dead still. I was forced to ward my entire body to keep frost from starting to build up on the leading edges of my wings and my lungs from burning when I breathed. The ground below us was an arctic wasteland of ice-rimed rock, reflecting flashes of red from destructive spells. 

There was a dragon confronting Shabranigdo's ghost, a feathered red dragon with a scarred body and a shredded wing. Just as I remembered from my dream. 

"If I wouldn't give in to him, then why the _fuck_ would I give in to you?" The rasp of his voice carried to us through the still air. 

"If you will not serve, then you are of no use to me. Die." 

"Like hell!" I snarled, and folded my wings to dive. 

Beside me, Gaav hesitated only for a moment before thundering, "Magnus, you fucker—keep your talons off my spawn!" and teleporting straight out of the sky to take up a position between not-Zilstan and the shifting grey beast.


	35. Chapter 35

Really, for something thrown together on the spur of the moment, Ruby-Eye had come up with quite a nice, multi-layered plan. Branch A: grab onto me and make Gaav and I fight each other to the death. Branch B: recruit not-Zilstan and use him somehow—as bait, as a hostage, as the weapon for a sneak attack. Branch C: destroy not-Zilstan and deprive Gaav permanently of some small portion of his power. There was probably a branch D, as well. Hopefully we'd never find out what it was going to be. 

It looked ridiculous, that tiny human figure standing between two huge beasts. A bit vertigo-inducing, even. I'd always thought of my mate as large, but that was only true on the astral. 

I dropped down beside him, fluffing out my wings to command the physical space that he couldn't, and felt the phantom butt of one of his astral form's heads against my shoulder. 

" _Gaav,_ " whispered a distant-sounding voice. 

My mate snorted. "And now the bribe offers, I'll bet. Let's shorten this up a bit: go fuck yourself. There's nothing you can give me that I want." 

" _Not even your freedom?_ " 

"Freedom from what? Given the choice between Ragradia's shit and yours, I'll go with hers every time, 'cause she's _dead_. I'd rather be imprisoned by her dying spell than go back to being your fucking _slave_." 

" _You . . ._ " 

"I served you because I didn't know anything else. But I understand now that everything I did then was worthless. Built only to be trashed, because that was what your shitty _plan_ for the universe called for. Fuck that. This world may not be perfect, but it's good enough, and I'll leave my mark on it in my own way. I can't do that if you send it back to the Sea of Chaos. That's a mortal view of things, I guess, but part of me _is_ mortal now. And if you want to take anything that's mine, you're going to have to destroy me first." A red aura flared around him as he said those last words, and he swung his sword down off his shoulder, preparing to attack. "So if you still think one-seventh of you can win against Val and me, _bring it on!_ " 

The swing of his sword created a good-sized shockwave that slammed into ghost-Shabranigdo's feet and carved off a little more of his substance. I punctuated that by breathing directly into one of the grey creature's faces, melting it away. Was it just my imagination, or was it smaller now? 

Gaav made a throaty growling sound, and a baleful red light erupted from him, rising into a familiar three-headed form as he drew on his power so strongly that part of his true body began to bleed through the barrier between the planes. He never quite made it through to this side, though, no matter how hard he tried. 

Never . . . _quite_ . . . 

I felt like I'd suddenly be hit over the head with a rock. _I'm an idiot!_ The design of the . . . thing . . . Ragradia had cast on him didn't matter. Nor did how much of it he'd absorbed. What I had to do to free him was cut the bits that were _holding him back_. 

Quickly, I submerged my attention in the astral, dropping down through the layers, observing my mate all the while. That . . . and that . . . and that . . . I slid a talon in, wincing as I scored his flesh to get at the wire-like strands of spell that were still deeply and painfully embedded there without ever having been absorbed. There was no other way, I knew, and the closest thing I could provide to painlessness would lie in making it quick. 

A spell-strand snapped, and he jerked up, half-departing the deepest layer he'd occupied before. Quickly, I cut the other two, and there was a massive surge as the real Gaav poured out into the physical plane for the first time in a thousand years, producing brief visual confusion as his two bodies united. Brief mental confusion as well, I expect, because he checked his step in mid-attack, then surged forward, smashing into the grey image of Ruby-Eye, his roar echoing like thunder from the mountainsides. 

I couldn't do anything more to help him, not when he and his enemy were tangled together like that, tearing at each other in primal competition, and was thus forced to watch tensely from the sidelines, along with Rashatt and Zelgadis. Not-Zilstan was still there too, crouched in a little knot behind us. 

The problem was, we'd all forgotten something. Or rather, we'd all forgotten some _one_. 

There was no warning, only a hoarse, terrible noise from not-Zilstan that rose to the agonized scream of a wounded hatchling as a black talon pushed itself out of his body and ripped downward. Attack from the lower layers of the astral, with the attacker invisible in the black miasma thrown off by Shabranigdo. Invisible to not-Zilstan, too, although his head thrashed back and forth as he searched for the source of his torment. 

As the talon began to pull back, I deliberately submerged my perceptions in the astral, putting all my attention into tracing the eddies that marked its route. There? I breathed out chaos, biting through the darkness, and got a brief glimpse of . . . something . . . just before the attack singed the edge of it. 

"You _bastard_ ," said a woman's voice, out of nothing. Riksfalto. 

"You shouldn't have used Xellos' favourite trick," I snapped back. "Hell, I thought you hated tricks." 

"I do." She projected herself out of the astral as she spoke, a pseudo-human form hovering in midair a few feet from my nose. I almost had to cross my eyes to keep her in view. "Dolphin-sama's orders were very specific," she added with a grimace. "She wasn't pleased with the results the last time." 

_I'd bet not, but I doubt micromanaging her troops will make things work any better._ "More to the point, are you going to keep on fighting?" I asked. 

She shook her head. "I have no specific orders on what to do if my initial attack failed, and I'm not stupid. There are two of you and one of me, and you alone are vastly stronger than I am. My annihilation doesn't benefit Dolphin-sama." 

"Maybe not, but it would make _me_ feel better," Rashatt growled, gathering himself to lunge at her. 

" _Rashatt!_ " I snapped. "Stand down. Don't make a move unless she does." 

Gaav's General glared at me. I glared back. It was the first time I'd tried to command him without Gaav himself looming beside me in implicit threat. If I backed down now, I'd never be able to trust him to follow my orders. 

It seemed to take forever before Rashatt jerked his head and looked away. I was all but grinding my teeth. Nearly a minute had passed, but not-Zilstan was still lying on the ground like a sack of meat. I would have thought he was dead if he hadn't still been leaking blood and astral substance. He needed help if he was going to survive, and each moment I was stuck in this stupid stand-off was a moment I wasn't giving it to him. 

"If you don't want to fight, then get the hell out of here," I told Riksfalto, swiping at her projection with a talon wrapped in black-gold fire. She yanked herself back into the astral, but I know I caught the edge of her before she was able to get her real self out of range. 

That left the false Ruby-Eye as our only opponent, and when I looked up to check, the grey figure had shrunk quite a bit, and Gaav, uninjured, seemed to be having the time of his life tearing into what was left. In the end, a ghost hadn't been a match for us, no matter whose will guided it. I found that somewhat reassuring. 

Not-Zilstan opened his golden eye as I nudged the edge of his tattered wing away from his body to get a better look at the wound. 

"You . . ." he rasped. 

"Don't try to talk, idiot. You need to save your strength." Bad. This was really bad. At least as bad as the wound that had almost killed Gaav. 

"I'd rather lose it than give it to _him_." 

I snarled and whipped him with my tail. "Listen to me for once, you stupid hatchling! We. Want. You. Alive. Is that simple enough for you to understand, or do I have to find a one-syllable word for 'alive', too? We need _allies_ right now, not a few drops added to Gaav's power! And by my way of thinking, we _owe_ you our help and our protection." 

"Owe . . . me . . ." A cracked laugh. "Stupid . . ." 

"Of course we fucking owe you! You're our _child_ , and we left you half-formed, alone and without protection—" I clamped my jaw shut again. I had _not_ been meaning to blurt all of that out. Hell, I hadn't even articulated it completely to myself, before now, and it wasn't just one golden eye staring at me like I'd lost my mind. Rashatt, Zelgadis, Hen-chan, and even Pokota had similar expressions on their faces. 

A roar of triumph blasted into the silence as the last grey shreds of Ruby-Eye's ghost vanished into nothing. The cloud cover began to break up as Gaav turned toward us, still in his dragon form, smirking. His expression changed almost immediately, though, and he threaded himself through a fold in space to my side. 

"Guess I should have spent less time fooling around," he rumbled from his center head while the right-hand one darted down to examine the fallen dragon. He nosed not-Zilstan in the side, not at all gently. "Hey, you! Seal the hole with your wing, at least, or you're going to bleed out while we're working on you." 

"You . . ." 

"Val's probably been trying to convince you that we don't want to hurt you," my mate continued. "I figure that's doing things ass-backwards. If we fix you first, then you might have some reason to believe us. But you could at least fucking well _try_ to hold it together." 

"Fuck you," not-Zilstan rasped out, and tried to struggle to his feet. Gaav planted his talons on unperforated parts of the other Mazoku chimera's torso and forced him down again. 

"Val. I'll keep him under control. You do whatever you think you need to, little dragon." 

I jerked, a bit startled. _Me?_ But there was no time to argue. 

As with Gaav's injury . . . barely a month ago? It seemed like it should be longer. But regardless, what I needed to do first was stop not-Zilstan from bleeding out on the astral, so I spun of some of my energy, encapsulated it, and used it to pack his wound. 

The malformed Mazoku howled and thrashed, forcing Gaav to lean harder on him. Hopefully once he realized why I'd done it, he'd be able to forgive me for the pain. He had to be hurting almost beyond endurance—his injury was far more . . . central to his being than my mate's had been, and he'd already been in pain even without it. Looking at him closely, with Gaav pinning him in place and forcing him to submit to my inspection, I could see why, long-ago lessons on Mazoku anatomy coming together in my head to identify where bits of him were missing. 

I still didn't know the first thing about throwing a spawn, but not-Zilstan's astral body ought to know itself how it was supposed to fit together, just like a physical body has a pattern for itself branded into every fragment of flesh. Otherwise, cloning wouldn't be possible, and using Resurrection to regrow limbs would as easily give you a leg or a wing where you wanted an arm. So given the right encouragement and enough power, it should be possible for him to regenerate the pieces he'd never had. 

The problem was the scar tissue. Only a strong white magic caster could force healing past old scars. A slightly weaker caster would have to cut away flesh and reopen the wound before they could make it heal cleanly. Which had unpleasant implications for the current situation, but I was damned if I was going to leave this crazy, frustrating hatchling half-healed. 

We'd failed him once. I wasn't going to let it happen again, even if he ended up hating me. I'd claimed him as kin—the last of my people, other than myself—and I was going to look after him. 

Delicately peel away a layer of what passed for skin on a Mazoku's true body, while its owner roared and struggled. Take my own power and try to strip it down to something dark, with none of Ceiphied's white fire or Chaos' gold clinging to it, then feed it into him, shape it, mold it . . . yes. Like that. There. Trace something that both was and was not a calf muscle, the edge of a wing, a missing forelimb, and coax it to take its proper form as its owner fought me and his flesh itself tried to crawl around, or at least that's what it seemed like. And the face . . . that represented a second missing part unrelated to the other. I smoothed my power over it as delicately as I could, and discovered that his body recognized it now as it pulled it in and drew it tight against astral bone-analogue. He even seemed to have assimilated the original patch that I'd used on his injury, despite the foreign encapsulation of shamanist power. And he was losing consciousness now, his body finally relaxing on both planes. 

There was one last thing I needed to do before sliding out of my half-trance and back down to the physical, though, and I leaned down near his earhole to do it. 

"Radyan," I told him. "Your name is Radyan." It was the rare masculine form of _Radia_ , a traditional name given to honour the Water Dragon King. Since Ragradia was responsible for his existence in an odd, ass-backwards kind of way, I thought it was appropriate. 

"Radyan," my mate repeated, his voice a soft rumble. "It'll do, I suppose, although it's one hell of a name for a Mazoku Priest. Dynast'll probably have kittens when he realizes where you got it." He chuckled, then turned to our unconscious . . . son. "All right, brat, let's get you shrunk down so that we can carry you back to camp—fucked if I'm going to manhandle you in this form. I don't want to end up dragging your wings." 

"Couldn't you just, I don't know, float him?" Hen-chan asked, speaking up for the first time in a long time. 

All three of Gaav's heads grinned. "I could, but it would be cheating," the central one said, while the right one murmured a spell in Draconic, one of the ones sometimes used to help hatchlings who hadn't quite mastered their smaller forms yet. Radyan's body—now with two perfect forelimbs and two intact red-feathered wings—shrank down into its humanoid mode. He looked . . . different, I realized, and shrank down to human form myself for a better view of the details. 

I'd expected the intact limbs, of course, and his hair was still the colour of flame, but his body was subtly narrower, as though he'd lost an inch or so of width at the shoulders, and his face didn't seem quite the same even when you took into account the loss of ingrained pain lines. He still had Gaav's mouth, wide and expressive, but his eyebrows were less bushy, and the lines of his nose and cheekbones seemed softer, somehow. He looked, I realized with shock as a face out of the past suddenly snapped into focus in my mind's eye, a bit like my father. Maybe even a bit like me. 

If he opened his eyes now, what colour would they be? Still one blue and one yellow? Or both hot gold? 

Gaav, having returned to his smaller form as well, bent down and gathered Radyan into his arms. "He's going to be a fucking handful," he said, meeting my eyes above his unconscious burden. "Let's hope he didn't really inherit the worst of both of us. I'm glad he isn't going to wake up for a while—gives us time to think about what to do with him." 

"He's already been a handful," I pointed out. "I can't see it getting much worse." 

"Tempting the Golden One again, little dragon?" 

I grimaced. "Probably. I can't seem to help it." 

My mate laughed. 

Teleporting back to the base camp, we discovered things in a state of organized panic. Apparently the officer Rashatt had left in charge could handle most normal military situations, but having a golden dragon drop in to see the army's absent commanders wasn't something he normally had to deal with. So they'd put the unexpected guest in our tent to wait, and begun the motions of packing everything up while pretending that wasn't what they were doing. 

Or at least, that was what we figured out afterwards. All I knew at the time was that I flipped back the tent flap and discovered Milgazia sitting beside the brazier, sipping tea, while Jillas waited on him. Gaav strode past them to deposit Radyan on our bed before turning to the unexpected guest, but I knew he was watching Milgazia the entire time, even though he was pretending to be unconcerned. He would have considered it foolish to do otherwise. 

I was the one who greeted the golden. "Elder Milgazia-dono." 

"Val-dono. Maryuuoh-sama. I trust you are well." 

I raised an eyebrow. "About as much so as when we last met. So, what brings you here so . . . suddenly?" 

"We—the other Elders and I—all sensed the King in the North stirring, and I was delegated to find out what was going on." 

Gaav chuckled. "You mean the rest were too cowardly to come up here and talk to me themselves." 

Milgazia's expression didn't change, but the irritation and resignation flowing from him spoke volumes. "It isn't for me to say what may have been on their minds." 

"Bullshit," my mate said bluntly. "You know as well as I do that you were the only member of your clan of any rank to make it through the front lines of the Kouma War. Those other 'Elders' survived because they were hiding out with the hatchlings. Coming face to face with me would make them piss themselves." 

"I didn't come here to discuss my clan's internal politics." The golden's expression remained bland and neutral. Soothing, almost. A shame he didn't have as good a control of his emotions as he did of his facial muscles. His anger was like a smooth blend of soft cheese and spices, the kind they put out at parties for people to spread on crackers. 

"Fuck, you're a hard nut to crack," Gaav said, but he sounded amused. "All right, then. Dolphin stuck her muzzle into my business and woke up the fragment of dear old Dad you've been keeping an eye on, hoping she could use him to backstab me. He could only project part of his power out of the crater, though, so it didn't work very well. He should be pretty quiet for the next couple of centuries while he licks his wounds. Hell, if it looks like he's starting to get restless, call me, and I'll cut him down to size for you." 

Milgazia froze. "Why would you risk yourself for us?" 

"Not for you," my mate corrected. "I don't give a flying fuck about you yellow idiots. But Ruby-Eye isn't just a danger to you, he's a danger to the entire world. And _that_ I won't allow. This is my home, and Val's, and if anyone tries to take it away from us, I'll turn him into a fucking hamburger patty." 

"You mean _we_ will," I corrected him, and we both grinned. 

"I think I found you less frightening when you were on the Mazoku side," Milgazia said with a wry smile. "The other Elders may not want to accept your aid, but if we reach the point where we are unable to deal with _him_ alone . . ." 

" . . . you'll use us," Gaav finished for him. "Don't waste time sugar-coating it. We all know that's what it comes down to in the end, and I wouldn't have offered if it bothered me." 

That line about the enemy of your enemy being your friend is bullshit. We all knew it, even Jillas. At best, a common enemy promotes a shaky alliance that falls apart again once the external pressure is removed. But at least it was a start. Something we could use to rope them in. 

When, one day, we were ready again to march against the King in the North, why _not_ do it with an army of golden dragons at our side?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few more loose ends to go. Well, okay, a lot of loose ends. ;)


	36. Chapter 36

"I can't believe I'm doing this." It was about the eighth time Rashatt had said it. If he'd been human, I think he would have been looking green. As it was, his projection stuttered oddly sometimes when he moved it. 

I rolled my eyes unsympathetically. "You aren't even getting married, just engaged. Hell, you didn't even argue that hard! And you're getting cold feet now?" 

We were in a private room in the royal palace of Dils, a small, versatile place designed for nobles who needed to change their clothes or work off their jitters or be sick without anyone seeing them, and I suspected it had played host to not a few sexual encounters as well. Not that anything like _that_ was going to happen just now. All other factors aside, it would have pissed off Rashatt's new fiancee. 

"There's a small part of me that really wants to do it," Rashatt admitted to his feet. He was sitting on a sofa, bent over, with his elbows propped on his knees, staring at the ground. Even the brass-washed armour he was wearing somehow managed to look unhappy. "And part of me's confused and part of me's scared and the biggest part of me just really doesn't want to piss off Gaav-sama . . . but you know all that. You can taste it." 

"Yeah, but that isn't the same as understanding _why_ ," I pointed out. "I can't tell what you're scared _of_ , just for starters." 

He gave me a sickly smile. "You're not alone in that—I'm not sure either. It's just this nasty _crawling_ feeling. I've never felt anything like it before. Swallowing that soul might be the biggest mistake I've ever made. I'm starting to understand a bit of what Gaav-sama's been getting at, but these extra _feelings_ suck so hard that I wish I hadn't bothered to try. You probably wouldn't know, because you were never _just_ a Mazoku, but we're pretty cold and logical about some classes of calculations, really." 

I snorted. "You could have fooled me." 

"Yeah, well . . . we rely on that whole pecking order thing to assess risk. Rely on it too much. I get that now. But mortals take big risks for sucky reasons that don't even make _sense_. That kid . . . Kellelan, right? His spirit hadn't entirely dissipated yet, and I picked up a few of his memories. Like a very small Val, with his wings and tail sticking out, _coated_ in flour and molasses. I bet there are people out there who'd pay me pretty well to publicize that one." Rashatt grinned nastily. I responded with a wordless growl. Of all the incidents in my life that I wanted to be forgotten, that particular bit of hatchling stupidity ranked . . . around twentieth. "But some of the stuff more recently . . . he was pretty fucked up, you know? It's like he didn't believe in death at first, and then when he realized just what kind of shit he'd landed himself in the middle of, he couldn't figure out how to take back what he'd already done. And it was like he thought something awful would happen if he didn't unfuck what he'd fucked up _before_ he admitted it was a fuck-up. The sane thing to do would have been to make himself scarce until everyone had calmed down a bit, but instead, he stuck his neck out and got it chopped off." 

So Kel had died . . . for adolescent pride, evidently. Of all the stupid things . . . Tears were stinging at my eyes, but I blinked them away. Either Rashatt was messing with me on purpose—in which case I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing my reaction—or he honestly didn't know what he'd just done, in which case I didn't want to look weak. 

I'd already sent a letter to Kel's parents, containing carefully chosen truths. They'd remember their son as a fine young man who had died to save someone else's life. I was the only one who needed to be able to deal with the rest. Just another small stone added to the mound of guilt I carried around. In another hundred years, it would probably be barely enough for me to notice. One more life I could have saved, buried under the corpses of all my people. 

But that wasn't the sort of thing I should be thinking about during the lead-up to someone's engagement. Even if it was just the engagement of Rashatt-the-asshole and Thalia-the-zoo-mistress. 

"Stop messing around and get control of your projection," I told Rashatt. "Concentrate on that and use it to shove the rest out of your head. If you start flickering like this in front of the humans, Gaav is going to be really pissed." 

"You're starting to make me wish I'd asked one of the lesser Mazoku to do this 'best man' crap," Rashatt grumbled, but his projection did firm up. 

"It's too bad Radyan isn't awake yet," I said. "I'm pretty sure he could use a good laugh." 

Rashatt scowled. "Oh, yeah, he'd be laughing his ass off. The only reason I'm not _already_ shacked up is that he needed my support too badly to push me all that hard. When his mind was working okay, his sense of strategy was always scarily like Gaav-sama's." 

There was a knock on the door and the sound of a human clearing his throat outside. "General Rashatt, they're ready for you." 

"Let's get this over with," Rashatt said, and pushed himself to his feet. 

We entered the Great Hall from the left-front entrance, up on the dais. Since this wasn't the actual wedding, we thankfully didn't have to parade up the aisle—if we had, I think Rashatt's projection would have fallen apart into a geometric pattern before we'd made it halfway. Queen Thalia was already there, dressed in her normal green gown. Her maid of honour, who also happened to be her guard captain, was wearing flashy dress armour like Rashatt's, though. 

Beyond the dais, the room was packed. Unsurprisingly. The whole point of having the ceremony in here had been to allow for lots of witnesses. King Olovis and his wife, along with the real Zilstan's possible heirs—all eight of them—were in the front row, with lesser nobles arranged behind them, and some assorted officials and off-duty servants at the very back. 

Gaav was sitting on a ceiling beam near the midpoint of the hall, with his booted feet dangling down and a concealment ward drawn over him. He'd chosen to sidestep the problem of protocol by not being officially present. Several of the Dilsan courtiers had been on the edge of a nervous breakdown trying to figure out how exactly one properly played host to a Dark Lord, and letting them go completely crazy and fall down foaming at the mouth wouldn't have helped our relationship with the Dilsan government, which we were trying to cultivate. 

"Your Majesty." Rashatt managed to make his bow look smooth, and I think I was the only one who noticed the slight flicker at his elbow. 

"General Rashatt. My lords and ladies," the queen added, with a nod to the audience. "We come before you today asking you to bear witness to our intent." The turned back to Rashatt, facing him directly. "General, I ask: will you marry me?" 

Rashatt's projection stuttered again . . . but for a second time, he managed to keep it from being visible to anyone but me. "I would be honoured, your Majesty." 

Since Thalia was the one doing the asking, she was also supplying the engagement ring, which was passed from her maid of honour, to me, to Rashatt. Really, handing the damned thing off was the only reason I was there. 

Rashatt's projection didn't flicker once as he slid it onto her finger—and it was a damned good thing, because if he'd dropped it, I would have needed to do some quick damage control, flicking it back into his hand with my powers. The emerald flashed when the queen held up her hand, and there were restrained sounds of approval. _Genuine_ approval, which surprised me a bit, even though I knew that both we and the Dilsan royals had been putting a lot of effort into publicity and spin in the two days since Rashatt had agreed to this. 

I put in half an hour at the reception afterwards, teeth tightly gritted the whole time. I'd never liked these crappy formal parties or the inane conversation that went with them. I was intending to stay for another half an hour, then vanish when everyone's attention was on some toast or other, but a muscular arm reached out suddenly from a curtained alcove, snagged me, and pulled me inside. 

"Rashatt seems to have everything pretty well in hand," my mate rumbled in my ear. "Why don't we leave him to it, and get the fuck out of here?" 

"There's nothing I'd like more," I said. "Except . . ." 

"Mmm?" 

"You." I leaned up and kissed him, and he chuckled softly. 

"I'm just as tired of waiting as you are, little dragon. I don't think I've ever been so pissed off by the need to keep an eye on an army as I have the past few days. I can finally do you _properly_ , but scraping together a couple of fucking hours so that we can enjoy it . . . Well, we've got the time now." He punctuated this with a hard, demanding kiss, and in the middle of it, we disappeared from the alcove and reappeared in the sun. 

We stood at the edge of an alpine valley carpeted in grass and wildflowers. I didn't know exactly where we were, but I was sure of one thing: we were utterly alone here. I couldn't detect even the least hint of emotion or foreign astral energy, so we had to be the only thinking beings for miles around. 

I broke the kiss and ducked out of my mate's grasp, changing forms in mid-leap as I reached for the sky. _Catch me if you can,_ I told him with a flutter of my wings and a twitch of my tail. A hatchling game, but it wasn't one he and I had ever gotten to play. 

I heard a growl behind me, and the swoosh of his wings as he propelled himself up into the air. 

We chased each other all over the valley. I had a better ratio of wing surface to body weight, so I was quicker, but Gaav had both endurance and cunning, and in the end, he brought me down, dropping from above like a thunderbolt. He backwinged at the last moment to keep either of us from getting injured as we tumbled into the grass. 

The tumbling turned to wrestling. His weight and those three heads gave him a bigger advantage on the ground than I had over him in the air . . . but I didn't really care. It wasn't like I'd really been trying to run away. 

I ended up crouched on the ground with my neck firmly gripped between red jaws and my mate's body pressing down on my back. I was at his mercy and knew it, and I groaned as a ripple of sheer hunger ran through my body and my cock began to unsheath itself. 

Gaav's other heads were licking my throat and jaw. "Want me, do you, little dragon?" 

"Always—" The word slurred into a trilling cry as he snaked his tail down between my hind legs and used the tip of it to play with my erection. A male dragon's cock is scaleless, cushioned by fluid when it's inside its sheath . . . and very, _very_ sensitive when exposed. The lightest brush of his scales against my shaft left me trilling and keening with pleasure. Gaav's cock was out too—I could feel the wet warmth of it rubbing my back, hear the slight hitch in his breathing whenever our movements put a little more pressure on it. 

He slid back off me by just a couple of feet, freeing his erection to probe at the folds of skin under my tail, which nature seemed to have arranged to direct it to just the right place. He didn't hesitate, surging forward with a growl the moment he found the entrance to my body, and I trilled as the slick motion of his cock inside me set off jolts of pleasure. In this form, I had two long bundles of sensitive nerves on either side of my passage instead of a single lumpy prostate (why was I thinking about that stupid sex-ed lecture _now_?), and the least movement inside me was able to set off another cascade. 

Ceiphied and Ruby-Eye, how long had I wanted this? How long had I waited, how long had I needed . . . his, truly _his_ , our bodies joined in the same act on both planes as he growled and settled into a hard, steady rhythm. Each motion rubbed at my balls, too, through their thin-scaled skin, and I could feel the tickle of grass against my cock, teasing. My entire lower body was filled with heat, with pleasure, and I could feel my climax slowly building, the pressure pushing me up on my toes and making my tail lash, rustling the grasses. 

"Gaav," I cried, and it blended into a trill as I felt the pressure rise past the point of no return. " _Gaaaaaaaaaav!_ " Molten release as his name echoed back from the cliffs edging the valley, the world shuddering as the physical and the astral blurred together. 

"Fuck, Val . . ." one of his heads muttered as a thick musky smell spread out around us. "D'you even know . . . what you're doing to me?" said another. The third was still clamped onto me, gripping the back of my neck to hold me in place, and the thought and the sensation made me come again, shaking. A low groan, and then I could feel him starting to pulse inside me, filling me with his seed. With _lots_ of seed, thick and hot and making me feel a bit swollen. Maybe I _was_ going to look like I was carrying his eggs after this, but I thought hazily that if I did, it would be worth it. 

At last he stilled on top of me, both of us panting heavily. Neither of us spoke. I felt a bit tired, but immensely satisfied. 

"Worth waiting for?" my mate asked at last, letting go of the back of my neck and gathering his feet under himself. 

"If we'd been waiting by choice, maybe." I sighed, and added, "I do wish we could just stay like this." 

He chuckled. "What, stuck together?" 

"Even that wouldn't be so bad . . . but you know what I mean." Just the two of us, in these forms, living in our own private aerie . . . a dragon's life. 

"Yeah, I do. Of course, Rashatt would run Dils into the ground, and your fox and our idiot hatchling would probably find some way to make fools of themselves too. So we've got fucking _responsibilities_." He nibbled gently at my jaw. "We can afford to dodge them for a few more hours, though. Where would you like to go?" 

"Mmm . . . well, I am feeling kind of sticky, so . . . let's find somewhere to wash up." 

A few moments later, two dragons, one red and three-headed, one dark and feathered, were splashing in the warm water of a tropical ocean where it washed against the edge of a sandbar. The gulls stared at us as we sluiced ourselves off. 

"You've been . . . all right, haven't you?" I asked as Gaav helped me groom my wings, spreading and preening the feathers. "Still feeling . . . yourself?" 

"I'm fine, little dragon. Better than fine. Can't you tell?" 

I looked down, face hot under my scales. "I wanted to be sure. Because you're . . . precious . . . to me." 

"Careful, there—if you blush much harder, you're going to boil the ocean." 

"At least that would piss Dolphin off," I pointed out, and he chuckled, nuzzling along my jaw. 

"I'm pretty sure nothing's going to happen to me—not to the inner me, my personality and spirit—while you're here, Val. You're my balance point, my anchor, my . . . fuck, what am I even saying? You're making me spout stupid shit again." 

"I still have to see if I can entice you to recite poetry or chase me down a hallway in the nude," I told him with a smirk, and we both laughed. 

When the sky began to turn pinkish with sunset, we reluctantly headed . . . home. Or at least, we were trying to make it into a home. 

These caverns weren't the ones where I'd been born, but they were similar: huge sand-floored caves, warmed and lit by magic, nearly a thousand feet higher up in the mountains than the meadow where Gaav and I had been . . . screwing. More importantly, the complex was in the far south-east, about as far from the old Mazoku Barrier as it was possible to get. While that didn't make certain classes of unwanted visitors impossible, it did make them less likely. And most of the spaces were large enough to comfortably hold two or more full-grown dragons. 

As I slipped past the spells on the entryway, I heard the soft but definite _crunch_ of a booted foot in one of the inner rooms, too heavy for Jillas. I flexed my talons against the sand, readying myself to attack. Just as a precaution. No one _should_ have been able to get through the protections on this place, or at least not without drawing Gaav's attention, but I'd been tripped up by _shoulds_ before. 

The figure that stepped through a privacy spell and into the main room wasn't unexpected, though. In fact, we'd been waiting for a while for him to make his reappearance. 

"Radyan," I said, looking down at him. He was wearing a mid-thigh-length dark blue tunic with a deep V collar that showed part of his chest, and a pair of light-coloured trousers, with sturdy-looking boots on his feet. His flame-coloured hair flowed loose down his back, over and around a nasty-looking curved sword with a wide blade. He'd chosen an odd, inverted scabbard that put the hilt near his right hip. "You're left-handed?" 

"It looks that way. Maybe having no right arm at all for so long trained me to favour the other side." The eyes that looked up at me were both hot gold. "Why did you bother fixing me?" 

"What the fuck do you mean _why_?" Gaav growled. "Or are you going to try to feed us that reabsorption shit again? If I wanted to pull something like that, better for my bottom line to use someone else's spawn, even if there would be parts of the energy that I wouldn't be able to assimilate. I've already replaced what I lost from having you carved off, thanks to Dear Old Dad doing such a sloppy job of projecting himself through those ghosts. Val's seen you as a son ever since he first met you, and I like to keep him happy. So: congratulations. You've got a family that's got no fucking idea how to _be_ a family, complete with two dads, an asshole big brother, and, pretty soon, a sister-in-law." 

"A family," Radyan said slowly. A low chuckle forced its way out of him, then, "Sorry. It's just so ridiculous . . . and yet . . . I don't think I've ever been so happy. I'm sorry, Val-sama . . . Val- _otousama_ ," he corrected himself, making me feel . . . oddly warm. "I didn't believe you when you claimed me as clan, that night, on the astral. I feel like a fucking idiot about that now." 

That night? _I guess it wasn't a dream after all. Or not_ only _a dream._ "I told you, only one kind of dragon has feathers. I don't give a damn that yours happen to be red. In fact, I like red. I like it a lot." 

"Cheeky little dragon," Gaav said, with a rumbling chuckle, and nuzzled me with his nearest head. 

"I don't really know much about them," Radyan admitted. "I have some of Gaav-otousama's memories, but none of them concern the ancient dragons. Well, except for the ones about you." 

"I'll tell you what I remember, although I'm not sure how much that is anymore. It's been a long time, and some of the details have worn away." But there were others that had recently been dragged back out into the light of day and lay there on the surface of my mind, fresh and raw and as-yet-unexamined. 

And so, the next morning, early, I extricated myself from a pile of warm scales and told Gaav I was going out for a bit. He opened the eyes of his nearest head for long enough to say, "Be careful," before diving back into dreamland again, and I teleported myself to a point among the peaks of the highest mountains in the world. Going back, I hoped, would help me think, or at least give me some kind of perspective. 

The shielding spells had collapsed centuries ago, leaving the valley a snowy shell of its former self. The temple was a ruin, blasted in the fight between me-as-Darkstar and Lina Inverse and her friends. Stray iron crucifixion frames and bits of bone and freeze-dried golden dragon flesh lay strewn about like the macabre toys of a mad child-god . . . but I wasn't interested in the valley floor. Instead, I launched myself into the cold air and aimed at three peaks on the far side, one of which was a hundred feet shorter than I remembered it, collapsed inward by magic to hide the broken eggs and tiny hatchling corpses and the bodies of those who had cared for them. Concealing the evidence of sin and ensuring that nothing could ever be rescued. 

I landed with a crunch on a snowy ledge and blinked. Was I in the wrong place? No, there was the cave mouth, half-choked with snow and gravel. Afraid of bringing the mountain down on it if I tried to blast it clear, I dug it out by hand instead, covering my talons with a thin layer of power and still muttering every bad word I knew as the cold seeped through to my flesh. 

The entryway that led deeper into the cavern complex was likewise half-choked with debris, making it difficult to orient myself against old and hazy memories. At least I could be reasonably sure there were no corpses here. The goldens had dragged them all away to set up their macabre little display at the temple. 

My surroundings became more familiar as I went deeper inside. This had been the tea room, the massive stone "cups" now dry and cracked, the big chess pieces lying on their sides on the board as though both sides had suddenly surrendered, although the go board in the far corner was still set up—white had been winning there, I judged. The otherwise useless shallow cul-de-sac a little further down had been engraved with graffiti by generations of fledglings, myself once among them. I didn't stop to find the text I'd scratched into the rock, though, or poke my head into the blackened entrance of the library next door. I'd oriented myself now, and I had a destination in mind. 

Here. 

The bottom half of the statue still stood in its niche at the entrance to the hallway—I suppose the goldens had left the remains alone because large statues of mountain goats aren't dragon-specific—marking this corridor as the private domain of a particular family. My parents had shared the room at the end, and mine . . . had been on the left. 

There was no privacy-spell guarding the door now. The goldens had ruptured all the magics in the complex as part of their attempt to erase us from history. Even the sand on the floor was smooth, as though no one had ever entered this place before. I hadn't been at home that night—I'd been outside, sprawled in the grass, talking with a couple of my age-mates. No one who had been inside had made it past the cave-mouth alive, here or at the other residential complex on the far side of the central peak. 

On the astral, something flickered. 

I jerked back, going instantly into defensive mode, thinking of bombs, of traps laid for anyone who might have been outside the settlement during the attack and returned, unknowing . . . When nothing happened for several long breaths, I focused myself more fully on the astral, and found . . . something tiny. An old, weak spell, buried deep in the sand and flickering like a dying star. 

Still suspicious, I used my power rather than my talons to sweep the sand up and move it to one side, and found . . . I stared at the little cache for a moment, then began to laugh. 

A seashell. Oddly-shaped rocks and bits of glass. A set of clay dice, still resting in a broken cup. The forgotten treasures of a hatchling who was still so small he couldn't fly on his own and had to be carried back and forth to the nursery. The spell was a weak etheric light cast on a piece of milky glass the size of a human head, nothing more. Not my work, though. It had been given to me by . . . by . . . Calya? Yes, Calya. The cousin Ruby-Eye's spell had invoked for me, an age-mate who had lived a couple of corridors over and worked . . . in the nursery . . . 

The laughter died in my throat. Instead, a roaring sound filled my ears as I stared at the useless trinket. A trace of power. The tiniest trace, but it belonged to someone whose body likely still lay under the fallen mountaintop. Someone whose death _had never been confirmed by anyone who knew her_. 

A possibility. A binding across time. A link. Maybe even . . . salvation. 

Bringing Calya forward into the future alone wouldn't help anything, of course—at best, we might have been able, with a lot of work, to produce a handful of sickly, inbred hatchlings. But there were other possibilities, ones I hadn't needed to explore in order to bring Gaav forward. Possibilities that might mean the restoration of a species. 

I wrapped the hunk of glass protectively in a thick blanket that I conjured on the spot. I would find a way. Now that I had this, I would find a way. 

I wasn't going to be the last, not when I'd found the slimmest chance of changing that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now all that's left is the epilogue-that-isn't-quite-a-separate-story.


	37. Coda

**(Several centuries before _Slayers Try_ )**

One of the hatchlings keened as a large rock bounced off his nose, a thin sound of distress, and I tried to spread my wings even wider. To protect them better. 

"Calya-neesan . . ." That was one of the older hatchlings, almost old enough to be called a fledgling. Normally she was a calm and solid sort, but right now her eyes were shiny with tears. 

"It's all right," I told her. Trying to keep my voice soothing, to sound like I believed it. If we adults started to spook too, the children would panic. "Everything is going to be just fine." 

I hadn't thought there was anything wrong at first either. Just a normal evening of breaking up little fights over toys and wiping runny muzzles and making sure all the stone dolls were put away. Even when one of the other Elders had shown up to speak to the matron-in-charge, I hadn't thought there was anything really wrong. That happened every year or two, and it had never led to anything before. It wasn't until the mountain had started shaking that I'd realized there was something really bad going on, and it wasn't until I'd seen the expression on Matron Ylse's face that I'd understood just how bad it was. 

Ylse was on her belly beside me right now, her wings, like mine, sheltering hatchlings. We were the only two adults up here. The other four on this shift were further back, in the hatchery proper, trying to protect the eggs. A hatchling might be hurt if one of the rocks fell on them, but an egg would be instantly smashed, the life inside leaking away . . . Somehow, I managed not to shudder at the thought. 

There was movement in the hallway outside, and I saw Ylse's head jerk up as she peered through the dust dislodged from the falling ceiling. I could see it too: the shadow of a dragon. A young male, I thought, and moving quickly. 

"Diem Wind!" snapped a half-familiar voice, and a gale tore the dust from the air. 

"Who are you?" Matron Ylse asked with equal sharpness the moment the other dragon's form was revealed. "You're not one of the Elders!" 

By then, I'd recognized him. "Val? What _happened_ to you?! You look . . ." I trailed off again, because I couldn't find the words. I'd seen my cousin this very afternoon, and he'd been fine, but now awful scars slashed across his hide. The only other dragon I'd ever seen who was so heavily marked had been caught in a cavern collapse. And Val's eyes . . . they were burning with something terrible, something beyond my experience. 

He turned briefly to me and forced a smile, but that just made things worse, because it was wrong in ways that went beyond it being forced, all twisted up and not reflected in his eyes at all. 

He dropped it the moment he turned back to Matron Ylse. "No one else will be coming." 

"What do you mean? What's going on out there?" Ylse sounded as helpless as I felt. Unable to hold it back any longer, I guess. 

Val gave her a look I couldn't interpret. "You were an Elder, weren't you? Ylse re Canvaridan, yes. Then you would have been there when Lonar ul Rechis tried to persuade the Council to give up Galvayra." 

Ylse jerked. "How do you know about that?" 

"There's no time to explain right now. But the goldens aren't willing to take 'no' for an answer. And now they're busy making sure there won't be any witnesses." 

Matron Ylse got it quicker than I did, and her scales paled to an ugly greenish-slate colour around her eyes and nostrils. "Murder . . . That can't be right! They're dragons, not Mazoku!" 

"They're a bunch of self-righteous fucking pricks who killed hundreds of thousands of the short-lived during the Kouma War!" Val thundered back. I'd never heard him speak in such a voice, or use that kind of language. I think Matron may have been intending to say something about that, but he overrode her effortlessly. "Do you think a bit more blood is going to stop them? They only needed a little tiny push from Lonar to decide that we were all traitors to Ceiphied! You want to know what's happening outside? They're _crucifying_ people outside the entrance to the temple! The dying, the dead, and those who surrender, all hung up neatly in a row! _I'd rather have Ruby-Eye and all his children out there in the valley than those dragons!_ " 

Ylse was crumpled on the ground. The hatchlings were frozen under my wings, too terrified of this strange, angry dragon and his words to even dare to cry. 

I growled. Val looked at me with surprise. "How dare you? What is frightening the children going to accomplish? Surely they aren't going to kill the hatchlings, the eggs—" 

"They're planning to bring the entire mountain down on top of you," my cousin interrupted. "Maximum efficiency, minimum work, and they won't actually have to _see_ the eggs they're smashing. Makes it easy for them to lie to themselves." 

"And you think that it's going to change something if we know all of this?!" I was still angry as hell. "I would have preferred to die without knowing, instead of this—" 

"There's a way out," Val interrupted me again. "That's why I'm here. To save you. We need to gather up all the eggs and hatchlings and move them to the third storage room." He gestured with a wing, back along the corridor he'd entered by. "Quickly! We've already wasted too much time!" 

Ylse visibly gritted her teeth and forced herself upright. "Fine," she said. "I expect the storeroom is just as safe as the nursery at this point. Calya, start moving the hatchlings. I'll be in the incubation chamber, helping Perrem and Mirelle wrap the eggs for transport." She furled her wings, and the hatchlings who had been clustered around her immediately cried out—they were the younger ones, too young to really understand what was going on. "Listen to Calya-neesan, children. Everything is going to be fine." 

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised she considers me chopped liver," Val muttered. One of the older hatchlings tittered nervously. 

"Now, everyone," I said, "I know Val looks scary, but I promise he won't hurt anyone. He's my cousin, and I've known him since he was three days out of the egg. Everyone needs to follow him. It isn't very far." I was going to have to bring up the rear, I knew. The youngest hatchling in the group was only a few weeks old, and while she could scramble along on all fours, I might have to levitate her and a couple of the other very little ones to keep them going. 

"We just have to go out into the hallway and around the corner," Val said, already turning back toward the doorway. "Not very far at all." 

He kicked rocks out of the way as he moved forward. The "corner", really a T-junction, was only ten long-bodylengths away, and the door to the storage room about the same distance along the new hallway. 

Val didn't turn, though. Instead, he stopped dead when he reached the T, and raised a wing. The hatchlings came to a confused stop behind him, and over the rumbling of the rocks, I heard someone off down the tunnel say, " . . . came from somewhere around here." 

Val glanced back, caught my eye, and jerked his head in the direction of the storeroom. I took that as a command to keep the hatchlings moving, and tapped the oldest of them lightly on the shoulder. 

"The third storeroom, Ria-chan," I told her. "Around the corner and through the door on the left." Ria nodded, even as a tear spilled down the side of her muzzle. "Everyone else, I need you to follow Ria." 

There was a skewed, overlapping chorus of childish voices piping, "Okay!" Ria and a couple of the other older hatchlings turned down the hallway towards the storeroom, and the others began tumbling after. I stayed in the rear, making sure the smallest ones kept up. 

Laughter came from somewhere beyond Val. "Oh, great, it's another one of these stupid meat shields. You'd think they'd learn . . . except I suppose most of them end up dead before they have the chance. Still, this one looks like he's been in a scrap or two—maybe he'll be more interesting than the last couple of batches." 

Val chuckled darkly. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to disappoint you. _Dragon of Chaos who sleeps in the inferno, let your roar burn my enemies to ash! Gaav Flare!_ " 

A red glow from further down the tunnel turned him briefly into a silhouette. As it faded, someone screamed. 

"You bastard!" 

"That was a warning," Val said. "You won't be walking away from the next one. Understand me?" 

"You think you can win against us?" 

There was that eerie, dark chuckle from Val again. "Oh, I know I can. Do you really think I got these scars herding goats? Come at me, you cowardly bastards!" 

"With pleasure," one of the other voices snarled, and past Val's shoulder, I could just see a pair of goldens, young males, barrelling down the hallway. 

Val moved forward to meet them, and I heard the impact of flesh against flesh as they slammed into him. I stared at what was going on, but I couldn't seem to see or hear anything but disjointed bits and pieces.. Growls. A cry of pain. The flash of light off someone's talons. A spray of red against the wall. Val's tail whipping across a golden's snarling face. A lax limb on the floor. Val and the larger golden rearing up, wrestling in the same way hatchlings sometimes did . . . except that this was no hatchling game. They were deadly serious. My fangs creased the flesh of my lower lip, and the sting seemed to make time start sluggishly moving again as Val went over on his back with the golden on top, then rolled them both to put the smaller dragon underneath him. I didn't see exactly what happened, but there was a sudden stench of blood and fecal matter, and then the golden was screaming on the ground with his guts torn open as Val reared up again and slashed his throat with a foretalon. The screams stopped abruptly. 

Both goldens were dead, with the marks of Val's talons on them. 

For a frozen moment, I couldn't understand what that meant. There was Val, sides heaving as he panted, body liberally splattered with blood, and at his feet were these two unmoving heaps of scaled flesh. The world was stretched out of focus again, and I felt my guts churn as though they belonged to someone else. 

Everything snapped back again as I heard another scream and Matron Ylse's voice saying, "Great Ceiphied!" And I vomited, right there, in the middle of the tunnel. The ceiling rumbled again, and dust sifted down over everything, over us and the corpses and the eggs in their knitted cozies floating along behind Ylse and the embarrassing puddle I'd just made. 

"Calya? Are you alright?" Val asked. I couldn't read his expression at all. 

"You killed them," I accused. 

"Yes, and I know I'll suffer the consequences of that. _When we're safe._ Now, you have to move. You're blocking the passageway." 

I stared at him. How could he be so calm? So focused? There were _dead bodies_ in here! 

" _Calya,_ " he repeated, nudging my shoulder. "You have an obligation to those hatchlings, and they're in there alone! _Move!_ " 

Something in his voice had me stepping forward before I was entirely conscious of it. My tail dragged through that ugly puddle of vomit and left a streak on the stone, and the vile taste was lodged in my mouth as I entered the storeroom. 

Inside, a massive, faintly glowing magic circle occupied most of the floor. The hatchlings were all piled up in a knot just inside the door, where the circle didn't reach. 

"Get into the circle," Val said from behind me. 

I began to herd the hatchlings forward. I didn't see that there was any other choice at this point. The shaking of the mountain had become almost constant, with pebbles and dust sifting down all over the place. The circle had been strongly enough laid that the lines glowed through the dust layer. I stared at those lines, trying to figure out what they meant, but the runework was beyond me. 

Had Val built this? _How?_ I knew he was smart, but he'd never seemed all that interested in studying magic. In studying much of anything at all, really. He'd always preferred more physically active work. He didn't even have a permanent job assignment—he worked as a "floater", general labour that the Elders shifted around according to what the clan needed at a given time. Goat herding, fire watch, tunnel maintenance, haulage, cleaning. When he could, he picked jobs that took him outside. 

I scrunched up near the back of the circle and spread my wings to shield the hatchlings again, while Matron Ylse and Perrem and Mirelle and fifty-three eggs in brightly-coloured knitted cozies piled into the room. Mirelle was barely more than a hatchling herself, and she flinched back toward the door rather than approach Val, who clearly frightened her more than the goldens or the falling ceiling. 

"Damnit, I'm not going to bite _you_ ," my cousin growled. "Move!" 

Mirelle cringed and shook her head. 

"You have to. _Please._ I'm not leaving anyone behind. Not this time." 

I couldn't remember ever having heard Val beg anyone for anything before. The whole idea clashed with his personality. Maybe that was why he wasn't very good at it. 

"Mirelle, come on," I said. "I promise he won't hurt you. If he tries, I'll . . ." My voice trailed off, because I couldn't think of what I could really do to stop Val if he wanted to hurt someone, except to try to block him with my body and hope he still cared enough about me that he wouldn't do to me what he had done to those goldens. _Meat shields_ , they'd called us. Ugh. 

There was a thunderous roar from above, and several of the hatchlings screamed shrilly as the ceiling began to fall for real, in huge chunks. Mirelle flinched again, and there was a sudden surge of power in the room that sent a shudder of cold terror through me and made my stomach flip-flop again. The falling ceiling halted for a second in midair, and Mirelle was dragged forward, into the circle, with her talons making a loud _screee!_ against the stone of the floor. Something to my right was glowing red, and I jerked my head around to see that the light was coming from Val's eyes. My own were widening in horror as Val yelled something I couldn't make out and the edge of the circle exploded upwards into a wall of golden light. The next moment, I was crushed to the ground by what felt like half a ton of falling rock. 

Someone was yelling, I realized, semi-conscious. Several someones. Strange voices. But I didn't dare move, didn't dare raise my head. There was something nearby that seemed to be pressing against my spirit, something huge and dangerous and terrifying. And then it was just . . . gone, leaving a sudden dizzying void. 

The weight lifted off my back, and I winced as I became aware of bruises on my shoulders, spine, and wings. Especially my wings, which had somehow survived with the bones and membranes intact, still shielding the hatchlings clustered around me. 

"Are you all right?" Strange voice. Female. "Here, let me— _Recovery!_ " 

Warm healing power moved through me, washing away the bruises, and I instantly felt much better. Tired, but that was the way Recovery worked—it speeded up the subject's natural healing, drawing on the body's own resources. Groggily, I shook my head. 

"The hatchlings?" I asked. 

"Some of them are bruised and they're all scared witless, but none of them were badly hurt," the strange female said. Finally getting my eyes to focus, I realized she was a golden, barely older than Mirelle. I'd never seen a dragon who had hair in her native form before, but I'd heard that some goldens were like that. She also had a pink bow tied to her tail. "We almost lost one of the eggs, but Radyan spotted the crack in the shell and cast a time-reversal on it before the eggling was affected, thankfully. I'm Filia, by the way. Welcome to Dragon's Peak." 

I shook my head again. _Dragon's Peak?_ I'd never even heard of it. Well, wherever we were, this room, with its high, vaulted ceiling, wasn't the storeroom near the nursery, although it was definitely a dragon-sized room with etheric lighting. Matron Ylse was nearby, and some of the hatchlings were moving toward her, skittering on the dust and chunks of rock scattered across the polished floor. 

"Filia, is she alright?" 

_When did he start looking so old?_ I wondered, astonished, staring at Val. I hadn't gotten a really good look at him in the dust-filled nursery, but now I saw that his flight muscles had thickened up and his crest had hardened. He didn't just look _worn_ , he looked _mature_ in a way that he shouldn't have for centuries yet. And yet there was no way that this scarred and battered dragon was anyone other than my cousin. 

The golden nodded. "No injuries except shock and bruises. She should be alright. What about the younger one? Her tail . . ." 

"Mirelle? What about her tail?" I asked sharply. 

Val grimaced. "I didn't manage to get her all the way into the circle before activating it. The spell severed the last four feet of her tail and the very tip of one wing. Don't worry, there are some really skilled white sorcerers here—she'll be fine. If you get a chance, tell her that I'm sorry." 

"Tell her yourself," I snapped. "Why should I do your dirty work for you?" 

"Because I doubt Elder Ylse will let me talk to her, and forcing the issue will just make things worse." 

I took a long, slow, deep breath, and tried to sort my questions into order. "Where are we? I know Filia-san said 'Dragon's Peak', but I have no idea where that is." 

"It's a mixed community of golden and black dragons in the far north. It was set up originally to guard the site of the final battle of the Kouma War and ensure that the piece of Ruby-Eye imprisoned there never gets free. The goldens here were Ragradia's followers, and they have nothing to do with the ones who attacked us." Val seemed to be choosing his words carefully, too. I wondered what it was that he was trying not to say. 

"How did you even know this place existed?" _And that spell-circle—_ I bit back the second question. _One thing at a time._

"It's complicated." Val grimaced again. "I suppose there's no way of breaking it to you gently: this is the year thirteen thousand seven hundred twenty-one of the Great Calendar, or if you prefer, the twelve hundred and thirty-third year since the end of the Kouma War." 

"No, this is the year twelve thousand six hundred ni—" I stopped in mid-sentence and blinked at Val, who persisted in looking much too old. "You brought us forward. In time. A thousand years." 

A weary nod. "As far as I know, I was originally the only survivor from the entire clan. A few of us got out the high end of the valley, over the pass, with the goldens chasing us. The others fell, one by one, until I was the only one left. I made it as far as the rainshadow desert on the far side before the goldens finally succeeded in knocking me out of the sky. They left me to die there, but I was found by someone else instead. At the time, I didn't think there was any way of rescuing anyone else. It wasn't until about sixty years ago that I came up with a method, and even then, there were a lot of details to iron out. Plus it could only be applied to people who had never been confirmed as dead. There weren't a hell of a lot of those." 

"Oh, Val . . . a thousand years, and you never gave up . . ." I was crying now, and I leaned forward with the intent of resting my head on his shoulder, but he took a half-step back. 

"I did give up," he said, head hanging. "For _centuries_. It didn't even occur to me until much later that there was even a _possibility_ , do you understand?" 

"You still came through in the end," I told him. "That's what matters." Were those tears gathering at the corners of his eyes? I couldn't help but think that he'd feel better if he'd let himself cry. He'd always been so stubborn . . . 

Instead, he forced a half-smile. "Maybe now I can finally rest for a bit." 

"Val . . ." 

"If you want to rest, you'll do it elsewhere." I hadn't noticed Matron Ylse approaching until she spoke. 

Val's "I understand," overlapped with my "What?" 

"The punishment for deliberately killing someone is shunning and expulsion from the clan," my cousin said. "It doesn't matter who I killed or why . . . and really, those two goldens were only the last in a lengthy series. Fighting turned out to be the one thing I'm good at. Regardless, I won't contest Elder Ylse's verdict—it isn't anything I didn't expect. Look after those hatchlings, all right?" 

I nodded . . . and even that, I knew, was teasing at the edges of clan law. Shunning meant that I wasn't allowed to speak to Val. None of us could do that ever again, unless the Elders lifted the ban. 

My cousin calmly turned and left the room. I found myself blinking as I stared after him. There seemed to be something following him, a huge heat-haze shimmer, easily the size of a dimos. I closed my eyes and shook my head, and when I looked again, it was gone. 

It took us hours to settle the eggs and the hatchlings in the nursery at Dragon's Peak, especially with Mirelle under healer's orders to rest, and therefore unable to help. Through all of that—packing the eggs in warm sand in a section that had been cleared for them, explaining to the hatchlings what had happened and dealing with the tears and tantrums when they were told they couldn't see their parents again, and helping to control the curiosity of the golden and black dragon hatchlings already resident—I couldn't get Val out of my mind. It just wasn't _fair_. How could we repay his extraordinary rescue by telling him that he couldn't see us or speak to us? Hadn't he been alone for long enough? 

Those thoughts ate at me as I lay curled up in the room I'd been given as my personal quarters. In the end, I got to my feet and went out into the hall, knowing I'd get no sleep that night. 

Perrem's and Mirelle's rooms were across from mine—we'd been given a whole corridor of what had originally been intended as black dragon housing—but I wasn't going to disturb either of them. Matron Ylse was in the nursery with the hatchlings, not willing to trust them to others quite yet. I wasn't about to disturb her, either. Especially not her. Instead, I headed for a tunnel our golden dragon guide had earlier dismissed with a flip of a wing and the words "guest quarters". Filia hadn't been willing to say much about Val, but I _had_ managed to worm out the information that neither he nor she were permanent residents of Dragon's Peak, which should make them guests. 

The only problem was that I had no idea which room Val was in, but I figured he and Filia were probably the only ones there. And finding the first couple that I tried empty bolstered my confidence. 

Then I poked my head into the third one, and immediately recoiled backwards. "I'm sorry, I—" 

"It's okay," said the dragon—the very strange dragon—who had been napping in the middle of the room. He had feathered wings, and I might have thought he was a heavy-set member of my own race if his scales hadn't been deep red. "You're Calya, right?" 

"Um, yes—how did you know?" 

He chuckled, a deep, rumbling noise. "I guess you didn't see me in the room when you arrived. Well, you were kind of getting squashed flat at the time. I imagine that would have been pretty fucking distracting. I'm Radyan, by the way. You can think of me as your cousin Val's son, although I wasn't born in the normal way and the situation's almost unbelievably complicated. But he claims me." 

"Val's . . . son?" I don't think I'd entirely grasped until then that Val had _lived_ a thousand years that I knew nothing about. 

Radyan nodded. "Are you looking for him?" 

"Yes." Somehow, it was difficult to look at him. He _did_ resemble Val, especially around the eyes, but there was something about the shape of his snout that struck me as _wrong_. 

"I'll show you, then. It isn't far . . . and if they're asleep, just poking your nose into the room might get you blasted back down the hall and out the other side of the aerie." 

I backed out of the room, and Radyan slipped past me into the hall and lead me to the archway at the end. He stopped outside the privacy curtain and did . . . something. I felt an odd chill, as though I was a rabbit being stared at by an eagle. Which was just ridiculous. Only after the chill had faded did Radyan stick his head through the privacy spell. 

"Val-otousama? Someone here to see you." 

The spell blocked the reply, but when Radyan pulled his head out again, he nodded to me. Tentatively, I moved forward. 

The first thing I noticed was the faint but unmistakable smell of male dragon musk. I didn't think it was Val's, either . . . or at least, not only his. Someone had been having sex in here recently, and neither had been a female. The room itself was huge, bigger than even an Elder's personal quarters would have been back home . . . although the occupants made it look smaller. Val lay relaxed on the sand, his head up and watching me, but curled around him . . . At first my eyes tried to make the massive, red-scaled figure into multiple dragons, especially since I could see three heads, blue-eyed, one of them resting on Val's flank with its eyelids at half-mast while the other two observed me. Then I realized that all three necks connected to the same body. The result should have been grotesque and pitiful, but the cold, alert intelligence in those six blue eyes didn't strike me as anything to be pitied. A bass growl so deep it was more felt than heard made my bones vibrate. 

Val butted the larger dragon's shoulder. "Stop that. I guarantee that she isn't here to hurt me. Sorry, Calya—ever since I mated him, he's been a bit overprotective. Are you all right?" 

The growl had stopped, but I still took a deep breath before speaking. I don't know what I'd been meaning to say, but what came out was, "You're mated to _that_?!" 

That was received with a deep-voiced chuckle. One red-scaled head smirked while another said, "Not bad. I probably would have guessed you and Val were related even if he hadn't told me, since dragons with enough balls to bad-mouth me are pretty fucking scarce." 

"You know, it's considered polite to introduce yourself when you meet someone for the first time," I retorted. 

The huge dragon snorted. "Usually I don't have to." 

Three heads . . . There was something nagging at me about that. Three heads . . . red scales . . . Oh, no. No, no, no. 

"Maryuuoh Gaav," I said numbly. 

"Took you long enough." 

"He's the one who found me in the desert that night," Val added. "And he's the one who powered the time travel spell. I couldn't have done it and gone back to fetch you too—I would have had to ask Radyan to go, and hope he could talk you or strong-arm you into going along with him. It would have been too much of a risk." 

"You're saying that you went over to Shabranigdo's side for our sake—" 

"Fuck, no," Gaav snapped. "I haven't been on Ruby-Eye's side since the Kouma War. Val never betrayed you to that extent. And stop looking at me like that, little dragon. You think I can't tell that she's important to you? I was never that dense." 

I just didn't know what to say. I'd known Val had to have changed, but the realization of just _how_ different he was, of what kind of life he might have lived apart from our clan . . . it had me stunned. Too much information, too quickly. 

"Why even bother to rescue us?" I asked, after a long pause. "You obviously knew that you wouldn't be . . . permitted contact . . . Anyway, not that I'm not grateful, but us being here doesn't really change anything for you. Not that I can see. But it must have been a lot of work just for nothing . . ." I was babbling, and knew it. I forced my mouth shut. 

"In some ways, you're right that it changes nothing. In others . . . it changes everything. Calya, I was the last. The last _ever_ ancient dragon. But I was never a very good one. I'm not . . . how I wanted our people to be remembered. It should have been someone else who made it out. I've spent centuries with that lodged in my brain, niggling at me. Survivor's guilt, if you like. I did some really stupid things because I was trying to get away from that, to get rid of the festering sore inside my mind . . ." Val shook his head violently, and fell silent for a moment. Then he resumed, "Plus, you, at least, were my friend. Is it wrong for me to have wanted to save you? To save those hatchlings? They never deserved what happened to them . . ." 

His eyes were pleading with me, and I didn't understand why. He needed me to say something, that was clear, but I wasn't sure what. 

"Of course it wasn't wrong," I managed at last. "How could it be wrong? You save our lives. I don't care how you did it. You're the bravest person I've ever known, and I'm proud to be your cousin. And your friend. Ylse is the one who's wrong," I added in a rush. "Sometimes the end _does_ justify the means. You're still one of us, and I'll fight to have you reinstated as a member of the clan. No matter how long it takes." 

" . . . No." Val's expression firmed up as he said it. "If you can get the shunning reversed, I'll be grateful, but it would be wrong for me to return to the clan. I don't _fit_ anymore. I'd just end up contaminating the hatchlings." His grin was crooked, but there was real humour in it. "If even one of them decided to emulate me, I'm not sure the world would survive it. It almost didn't survive me." 

There was another awkward pause before I dredged up a few more words. "So I guess this is good-bye." 

"For now, anyway," Val agreed. "And tell that Perrem that he isn't even nearly good enough for you, but if he makes you happy, I'll let him live." 

"What?" I squawked. 

"You'll figure it out," Val said, with a wide grin. "Have a hundred hatchlings, if you can manage it. Just don't name any of them after me." 

That was the last time I spoke to him, although I've managed to loosen up the rules enough that we can at least exchange letters now. My cousin. The only true hero I've ever known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That _could_ have been a separate short story, but I decided it tied in too closely with the last chapter of the main 'fic for me to feel comfortable posting it that way.
> 
> Anyway, that's all for now. I have three other Val/Gaav 'fics underway, but it's going to be at least a couple of months before any of them are finished enough to post. If we're lucky, the next one may be ready by Christmas.
> 
> I now have more than a million words of fanfic up on this site alone, and there's a lot of old stuff I haven't re-posted yet. I need a life, or something. ;P


End file.
